their own under similar circumstances.

The legitimate expenses connected with the preparation of every
important case are naturally large. For example, diagrams must be
prepared, photographs taken of the place of the crime, witnesses
compensated for their time and their expenses paid, and, most important
of all, competent experts must be engaged. This leads us to an
interesting aspect of the modern jury trial.

When no other defence to homicide is possible the claim of insanity is
frequently interposed. Nothing is more confusing to the ordinary juryman
than trying to determine the probative value of evidence touching
unsoundness of mind, and the application thereto of the legal test
of criminal responsibility. In point of fact, juries are hardly to be
blamed for this, since the law itself is antiquated and the subject one
abounding in difficulty. Unfortunately the opportunity for vague yet
damaging testimony on the part of experts, the ease with which
any desired opinion can be defended by a slight alteration in the
hypothetical facts, and the practical impossibility of exposure,
have been seized upon with avidity by a score or more of unscrupulous
alienists who are prepared to sell their services to the highest bidder.
These men are all the more dangerous because, clever students of mental
disease and thorough masters of their subject as they are, they are able
by adroit qualifications and skilful evasions to make half-truths seem
as convincing as whole ones. They ask and receive large sums for their
services, and their dishonest testimony must be met and refuted by the
evidence of honest physicians, who, by virtue of their attainments, have
a right to demand substantial fees. Even so, newspaper reports of the
expense to the State of notorious trials are grossly exaggerated.
The entire cost of the first Thaw trial to the County of New York was
considerably less than twenty thousand dollars, and the second trial
not more than half that amount. To the defence, however, it was a costly
matter, as the recent schedules in bankruptcy of the defendant show.
Therein it appears that one of his half-dozen counsel still claims
as owing to him for his services on the first trial the modest sum of
thirty-five thousand dollars. The cost of the whole defence was probably
ten times that sum. Most of the money goes to the lawyers, and the
experts take the remainder.

It goes without saying that both prosecutor and attorney for the d