JUDGE HUNT,

AND

The Right of Trial by Jury.

By JOHN HOOKER, Hartford, Conn.

* * *

The following article was intended for publication in a magazine, but
the writer kindly contributed it for publication in this pamphlet.

* * *

In the recent trial of Susan B. Anthony for voting, (illegally, as was
claimed, on the ground that as a woman she had no right to vote--a point
which we do not propose to consider,) the course of Judge Hunt, in
taking the case from the jury, and ordering a verdict of guilty to be
entered up, was so remarkable, so contrary to all rules of law, and so
subversive of the system of jury trials in criminal cases, that it
should not be allowed to pass without an emphatic protest on the part of
every public journal that values our liberties.

Let us first of all see precisely what were the facts. Miss Anthony was
charged with having knowingly voted, without lawful right to vote, at
the Congressional election in the eighth ward of the City of Rochester,
in the State of New York, in November, 1872. The Act of Congress under
which the prosecution was brought provides that, "If, at any election
for representative or delegate in the Congress of the United States, any
person shall knowingly personate and vote, or attempt to vote, in the
name of any other person, whether living, dead or fictitious, or vote
more than once at the same election for any candidate for the same
office, or vote at a place where he may not be lawfully entitled to
vote, or vote without having a lawful right to vote, every such person
shall be deemed guilty of a crime," &c.

The trial took place at Canandaigua, in the State of New York, in the
Circuit Court of the United States, before Judge Hunt, of the Supreme
Court of the United States.

The defendant pleaded not guilty--thus putting the Government upon the
proof of their entire case, admitting, however, that she was a woman,
but admitting nothing more.

The only evidence that she voted at all, and that, if at all, she voted
for a representative in Congress, offered on the part of the government,
was, that she handed four bits of paper, folded in the form of ballots,
to the inspectors, to be placed in the voting boxes. There was nothing
on the outside of these papers to indicate what they were, and the
contents were not known to the witnesses nor to the inspectors. There
were six ballot boxes, and each elector had the right to ca