ict for the defendant. If they find the plaintiff was
not negligent and the defendant was negligent, then they may find a
verdict for the plaintiff, provided they find, etc., etc. Otherwise
should they find the plaintiff was not negligent and the accident
happened not through the negligence of the defendant, then again must
they find for the defendant, or again--" but the jury by this time is
exhausted. The alternatives do not interest them. The judge may know
what he is talking about, but they do not. The interesting question is
how much are they going to give the plaintiff.

The judge finally becomes worn out, a kind of self-hypnosis sets in.
He remembers so many phrases and legal maxims that he might enunciate,
his brain becomes confused as to selection. There are volumes of
charges to juries which he has more or less learned by heart. There
are so many glittering and vague generalities about the law of
negligence, the law of contracts, the law of evidence, the burden of
proof, or the weight of testimony, that he could go on indefinitely.
The jury have ceased to understand and the judge realizing the
hopelessness of this situation, winds up by saying--"So, gentlemen,
bearing in mind what I have just told you and the evidence in the
case, you will retire and consider your verdict."

The jury begin to gather their hats and coats, when up jumps one of
the lawyers and says: "One moment, please. I ask your Honor to charge
that if the jury find the cow that was in the plaintiff's garden was a
white cow and not a red cow, then their verdict must be for the
defendant." "I so charge," says the judge. "I except," says the other
lawyer, "and I ask your Honor to charge the jury that if they believe
the cow was the property of the defendant, their verdict must be for
the plaintiff." "I refuse to charge in those words," says the judge,
"there may not have been any cow or he may not have eaten the
cabbages." Or the lawyer for the railway may ask the judge, "That if
the jury find that the driver was forty feet away from the tracks and
the car was a hundred feet away from the corner of Seventy-eighth
Street when he first saw the car, and the car was going at a rapid
rate and the conductor pulled the bell and the driver was sitting on
the right-hand side of the wagon and might have seen the car had the
car been one hundred feet below the corner, then in that event I ask
your Honor to instruct the jury that the plaintiff was guilty of