Show JURY FAILURE A DISPATCH says that negotiations are proceeding for a setlement of tho DAVIS will case at Butte Montana The matter has gone so far that it is expected the i dispute will bo adjusted out of court with in three weeks Tho contest has costa cost-a good many thousands of dollars all or most of which must eventually come out I of the estate of the dead millionaire After much preliminary skirmishing the case was gotten before a jury last summer and one of the most expensive trials that has ever taken place in the west followed Highpriced local attorneys at-torneys participated and lawyers with national reputations were brought from the east while numerous expert and expensive ex-pensive witnesses were employed The jury did not agree and being discharged ho litigants found themselves in precisely the same position they occupied before the commencement of the suit with this ex eptlon they were out a good deal of money Now it seems the parties have gotten together and concluded that it will be quite as well to divide the dead mans millions among themselves as to scatter hiS state among lawyers and court officials This common sense view of the case has undoubtably been brought about by a com cornt einplation of the uncertainty of a jury agreeing upon a verdict Right here in our own city we have just witnessed a long and exceedingly expensive expen-sive trial The time of the court has been taken up day after day scores of witnesses have been in attendance all of them more i or less expensive and some of them gentlemen gentle-men whoso time and knowledge cost a great deal of money There was an immense im-mense array lawyers gentlemen who do not appear in cases of this character without with-out big fees There was a jury also and when the judge the lawyers the experts and the witnesses had all gotten through with their parts the jurors took the case wrestled with it a day or two and then agreed that they could notagree they were discharged and the litigants hold the positions they occupied before the opening of the suit These two cases with both of which the local community is familiar arc not unlike hundreds of others which come before the courts in every part of the republio every week and all illustrating the inefficiency of the jury system and presenting forcible arguments in favor of a change to n system more in harmony with common sense The jury is not a failure because jurymen are lacking in intelligence or are corrupt but because it is impossible for twelve men to agree upon any proposition which is not absolutely plain and incapable incapa-ble of two interpretations Most of the verdicts ver-dicts are reached by compromise ono or more of the twelve men doing more or less I I violence to their best judgment and when I the cases are intricate or involve large sums an agreement is the rare exception Jurors simply dont know the law and dont see things through the same spectacles specta-cles and too often honest prejudice for or against one of the litigants interferes with tho proper exercise of a jurors judgment The jury comes very close to being a humbug and were It not for the fact that it affords a slight degree of protection against oppression the system would be abolished with as little ceremony as pOSSi ble |