ave loosed
their respective reporters and "special criminologists" upon him. Each
has its own idea and its own methods--often unscrupulous. And each has
its own particular victim upon whom it intends to fasten the blame.
Heaven save his reputation! Many an innocent man has been ruined for
life through the efforts of a newspaper "to make a case," and, of
course, the same thing, though happily in a lesser degree, is true of
the police and of some prosecutors as well.

In every great criminal case there are always four different and
frequently antagonistic elements engaged in the work of detection and
prosecution--first, the police; second, the district attorney; third,
the press; and, lastly, the personal friends and family of the deceased
or injured party. Each for its own ends--be it professional pride,
personal glorification, hard cash, or revenge--is equally anxious to
find the evidence and establish a case. Of course, the police are the
first ones notified of the commission of a crime, but as it is now
almost universally their duty to inform at once the coroner and also
the district attorney thereof, a tripartite race for glory frequently
results which adds nothing to the dignity of the administration of
criminal justice.

The coroner is at best no more than an appendix to the legal anatomy,
and frequently he is a disease. The spectacle of a medical man of
small learning and less English trying to preside over a court of first
instance is enough to make the accused himself chuckle for joy.

Not long ago the coroners of New York discovered that, owing to the
fact that the district attorney or his representatives generally
arrived first at the scene of any crime, there was nothing left for the
"medicos" to do, for the district attorney would thereupon submit the
matter at once to the grand jury instead of going through the formality
of a hearing in the coroner's court. The legal medicine men felt
aggrieved, and determined to be such early birds that no worm should
escape them. Accordingly, the next time one of them was notified of a
homicide he raced his horse down Madison Avenue at such speed that he
collided with a trolley car and broke his leg.

Another complained to the district attorney that the assistants of the
latter, who had arrived at the scene of an asphyxiation before him, had
bungled everything.

"Ach, dose young men!" he exclaimed, wringing his hands--"Dose young
men, dey come here and dey opened de