A GRIEVANCE. Does It Need Redress ?

Free Lance, Volume III, Issue 150, 16 May 1903, Page 8

A GRIEVANCE. Does It Need Redress ?

JUROR" is a queer personage. Like every other man with a grievance, he expects a sympathetic hearing of his tale of woe, and help to bring about what he calls a, reform. He tells us, m wards of great anger, evidently w ratten with a tomahawk, that he was recently summoned as ai juryman for the civil sittings of thrSupreme Court. He wasn't wanted. The laiw yers were a day or two out 'ii then reckoning he supposes, and, anyhow, it didn't matter to them. They lost nothing by it. He, himself, alleges he lost 15s, amount of his day's wages, and he expects, to lose another 15s any time his country calls. *■ * * "Juror's" remarks are particularly jagged w*hen he writes that counsel, who are responsible for the summoning of jurors when, they are not required, should be called upon< to pay the wages which the entire panel, so called, might have earned if its members had gone to work. He further protests that bills should be brought in during the coming session of Parliament to compel the lawyer to suffer for his carelessness or unpreparedness, and not only thdsi, but that counsel should also be mulcted, in costs for needlessly keeping witnesses 1 hanging about while they "get ready to get going." * * * Upon our word, this would be extremely bard 1 upon an already muohpersecuted body of learned gentlemen, whose sole aim and. only object in life iS to smooth the path of litigants for little enough money, gOodness knows. Even ir leiairned counsel's lightest word 's cheap at 6s Bd, and two taps of a typewriter negotiable for 3s 4d, what then? Don't you realise, Mr. "Juror," the immense amount of deadly "grind" the poor fellows have to undergo before they are able to speak in six and erightpences, write in guineas, and cause witnesses 1 to spend money in board while awaiting their pleasure? ♦ » » If "Juror" loses money in answering a misleading summons, many lawyers lose money in self-abnegating work for their bleeding country. Think of the singleness of soul that prompts a lawyer to lay aside the brief of his client to take up the more important brief of the people in the House of Representatives, and thei paltry recompense he gets for his share m tihe complication of statutes — statutes] that it may be possible later te construe m clients' favours. % Don't be hard on them, "Juror," in insisting that they shall pay away any of their well-earned money. You, perhaps, in learning your trade, spent a considerable amount of money in getting your kit of tools. So did the lawyer. Therefore, be merciful. • * * Pen, ink, and paper are not to be had foi nothing, and it costs £25 for a typewriter, besides from £1 to 30s <i w eek for labour to w r ork it. Then, the "swat" that is required to draw a conveyance after a precedent learnt by heart like parrot talk by the labourer. Someone had to manufacture that precedent, and it is not quite paid for yet. The final instalment will hardly ever be paid. Soi you see, Mr. "Juror," that, in the strenuous endeavour to make i crust, it is reasonable that a lawyer may momentarily forget that the juryman has to make a crust too. The

fargetfulnesa must not be put down as selfishness, and really it would be a distinct interference with, the liberty of the subject to demand reparation at the hands of men whose only weakness ih the amiable one of transient forgetfulness.