criminal courts much, that not one in ten who is brought here escapes conviction, and not one in ten who is once convicted, fails to be convicted and sent up over and over again. Once a criminal, always a criminal. If they get fetched here once they might as well throw up the sponge."

"Is it so bad as that?" I asked. He nodded. "Is there not something wrong with the penal institutions then?" I queried.

"How?"

"You told me a while ago," I explained, "that almost all first crimes or convictions were of boys under seventeen years of age. Now you say that not one in ten brought here, accused, escapes conviction, and not one in ten of these fails to be convicted over and over again. Now it seems to me that a boy of that age ought not to be a hopeless case even if he has been guilty of one crime; yet practically he is convicted for life if found guilty of larceny, we will say. Is there not food for reflection in that?"

"I do' know," he responded, "mebby. If anybody wanted to reflect. I guess most boys that hang around here don't spend none too much time reflectin' though—till after they get sent up. They get more time for it then," he added, dryly.

"Another thing that impresses me as strange," I went on, "is the apparent determination of the prosecutor to convict even where there is a very wide question as to the degree of guilt."

"I don't see anything queer in that. He's human. He likes to beat the other lawyer. Why, did you know that the prosecutor you heard just now is cousin to a lord? His first cousin married Lord————."

This was said with a good deal of pride and a sort of proprietary interest in both the lord and the fortunate prosecutor. I failed to grasp just its connection with the question in point to which I returned.

"But the public prosecutor is not, as I understand it, hired to convict but to represent the 'people,' one of whom is the accused. Now, is the State interested in convictions only—does it employ a man to see that its citizens are found guilty of crime, or is it to see that justice is done and the facts arrived at in the interest of all the people, including the accused?"

"I guess that is about the theory of the State," he replied, laughing as he started for the door, "but the practice of the prosecuting attorney is to convict every time if he can, and don't you forget it."

I have not forgotten that nor several other things, more or less important to the public, since my day in a Criminal Court.

It may be interesting to the reader to know that the jury in the case cited, disagreed. At a new trial the accused was acquitted on the grounds of self defense and the prosecutor no doubt felt that he was in very poor luck, indeed: "For," as I was told by a court officer, "he has lost his three last homicide cases and he's bound to convict the next time in spite of everything, or he won't be elected again. I wouldn't like to be the next fellow indicted for murder if he prosecutes the case, even if I was as innocent as a spring lamb," said he succinctly.

Nor should I.

But aside from this thought of the strangely anomalous attitude of the State's attorney; aside from the thought of the possible influence of such court room scenes upon the boys who flock there—who are largely of the class easily led into, and surrounded by, temptation; aside from the suggestions contained in the officer's statement—which I cannot but feel to be somewhat too sweeping, but none the less illustrative, that only one in ten brought before the Criminal Court escapes conviction, and only one in that ten fails to be reconvicted until it becomes practically a conviction for life to be once sent to a penal institution; aside from all this, there is much food for thought furnished by a day in a Criminal Court room. A study of the jury, and of the judge, is perhaps as productive of mental questions that reach far and mean much, as are those which I have briefly mentioned; for I am assured by those who are old in criminal court practice, that my day in court might be duplicated by a thousand days in a thousand courts and that in this day there were, alas, no unusual features. One suggestive feature was this. When the jury—an unusually intelligent looking body of men—was sworn for the next case, seven took the oath on the Bible and five refused to do so, simply affirming. This impressed me as a large proportion who declined to go through the ordinary form; but since it created no comment in the court room, I inferred that it was not sufficiently rare to attract attention, while only a few years ago, so I was told, it would have created a sensation. There appeared to be a growing feeling, too, against capital punishment. Quite a number of the talesmen were excused from serving on the jury on the ground of unalterable objection to this method of dealing with murderers. They would not hang a man, they said, no matter what his crime.

"Do you see any relation between the refusal to take the old form of oath, and the growth of a sentiment or conscientious scruple against hanging as a method of punishment"? I inquired of the officer.

"I do' know. Never thought of that. They're both a growin'; but I don't see as they've got anything to do with each other."

But I thought possibly they had.