divinely endowed.

His position is not exactly one of bluff, but he is the central figure of the stage; like the actor's profession the judge's job makes him an egotist. Take for example the essential elements of his knowledge of the law. He is the Jus Dicens, the one saying the law, the name of judge being derived from the two Latin words. He is supposed to know the law, at least he ought to know court procedure, and the law of his State thereon by heart. In New York State, for example, the Code of Civil Procedure is five hundred thousand words long. He is bound to take judicial notice without being told of all the statutes of the State Legislature, which are being passed at the rate of six hundred a year.

He is also supposed to know the laws of the United States passed at Washington, and to be thoroughly familiar with the latest decisions of the Supreme Courts of the United States, and those for the past 125 years. He must understand and look as though he knew beforehand any decision of the courts of his own State cited, which are conveniently and neatly printed in 219 New York Court of Appeals Reports, 173 volumes of the Appellate Division Reports, and 96 volumes of the Miscellaneous Reports, to say nothing of the opinions and decisions of other courts that are not printed at all. His knowledge of the law is a fearful and wonderful thing; he must have an oceanic mind.

It is told that one of the leaders of the bar had formerly a young man in his office who with advancing years and reputation was elected to the bench. Before the first of January when he was to take his oath of office, the old employer and friend sent for him. When he arrived he was greeted as follows: "Joe, I've sent for you because I wanted to see you before you become a judge. I am very fond of you and I wanted to see you once again as you were, because after you go on the bench you are bound to become a stuffed shirt, for they all do."

That so many escape is one of the wonders of human nature. That they retain their humanity is due to a disposition of Providence to temper the wind to the shorn lamb. The position necessarily takes away all initiative. In politics the judge is recognized as being a "dead one." After a few years on the bench only the exceptional man can fling off the shackles of his profession and get back into real life. He ceases from fighting, he is not energetic.

As a good judge he must be firm but restrained. He may not be too emphatic. Every inducement is toward making him lazy, fat, and easy. Before him everyone bows and waits for him to speak. He is the absolute boss within the four walls of his court-room. The only restraining influences are the reactions from the lawyers and spectators who are before him. Their opinions can not be openly expressed; they are reserved until afterwards. If a judge really has any idea of the high esteem in which he is held, let him find out what is being said of him after the case is over, as the clients and lawyers are going down in the elevator, or what the rear benches have been whispering.

He probably has a suspicion of this, but no matter how tolerant he desires to be, there is the temptation to show that his authority is supreme; that when the lawyers begin arguing a point on which he has formed an opinion to cut them off; when the witness is trembling on the stand as to whether the accident happened on a Thursday or a Friday, to ask her, "Don't you know that Thursday was on the 16th of April last year," which of course she does not. There is the temptation to feel that he can never be wrong; that a question may be reargued, but that he is not going to change his opinion.

The possibility is that the judge is a mild sort of bully. But it is not always safe to go on the assumption that being a bully he is also a coward. He may be, but on a trial the odds are too much in his favor. If the lawyer wants to fight the judge, he has a great deal at stake; he may awaken so strong a prejudice that the judge knowing the rules of the game better than he does, may beat him on a technicality. On the other hand it is a mistake for the lawyer to be subservient and too cringing. Being a bully, the judge is apt to take advantage of his position. The best policy is to appeal to his human instincts as a man. He may be decent in spite of critics of the courts to the contrary notwithstanding. If he is kindly treated he will respond.

In New York judges were appointed until about 1846, when there was a popular upheaval and the constitution was changed, and they have ever since been elective, with the exception of some of the minor courts. The advantages of the two methods is an open question. The arguments in favor of appointment are that it makes for an independent judiciary and that it secures better men for the bench, whereas the other does not, because the highest class lawyer will not go through the turmoil and supposed degradation of a political campaign. These arguments are not sound.

The argument for the election of judges is that it keeps the bench more humane, modern, and in touch with the will of the people. The one is the aristocratic idea, the other the democratic. A court as at present constituted is an autocratic institution but the judges should be democrats. A feeling prevails that the man who has gone through a course of political sprouts involving the training of election campaigns, is more understanding of the wants of the people whom he is to serve, also that courts should be arranged on a business basis.

An amusing aspect of an elective judge is that he is in an anomalous position. If he plays politics, endeavors to make friends either by his decisions on the bench or obeying the mandates of a superior political boss as to appointment of referees and receivers, he immediately becomes a corrupt judge. The stench of his unjust decisions will sooner or later come to the nostrils of the community and his chances of reëlection are forfeited. He runs the hazard of charges and removal.

If, on the other hand, he forgets the organization that has elected him either in the matter of patronage or the refusal of some desired court remedy, and so conducts his court that there shall be neither fear nor favor, he is a political ingrate and deserves neither reëlection nor promotion. Of course these are the two extremes; fortunately human nature is not what the sociologists and political theorists would make it.

The political boss is not the unscrupulous ogre that the muck-rakers picture. He does not order the judge to decide the hundred-thousand-dollar-contract case in favor of his hench man. He might like to have him do so but he does not ask. Neither does the judge lean over backwards in the other direction and imprison the contractor because he is a friend of the boss. The movements for the non-partisan election of judge show the recognition of some of these incongruities.

The fierce bright light that plays about a throne also makes the judge conspicuous. If he sneezes, if he coughs, if he takes a glass of water he is probably feverish and cross. If he keeps still he is going to sleep and not paying attention. If he gets up or sits down it is noted as indicative of how he is going to decide the case. Every movement is watched. The position of a judge is not enviable. He is the concrete object to which the evils of the court-room attach. To the popular mind he is the court, the law, the method of procedure, the source of all the technicalities, and the delays. The beaten side will bear him a grudge, and the winning side think they ought to have got more.

If he be lenient in interpreting the law, he may be called to account for inability; if he be too strict, he is accused of irritability. If he be too polite, he may seem to be extending favor. A justice of one court, wishing to be kind, once asked a young counselor whose case had been dismissed through a technicality to come up and sit on the bench