a glass of water
he is probably feverish and cross. If he keeps still he is going to
sleep and not paying attention. If he gets up or sits down it is noted
as indicative of how he is going to decide the case. Every movement is
watched. The position of a judge is not enviable. He is the concrete
object to which the evils of the court-room attach. To the popular
mind he is the court, the law, the method of procedure, the source of
all the technicalities, and the delays. The beaten side will bear him
a grudge, and the winning side think they ought to have got more.

If he be lenient in interpreting the law, he may be called to account
for inability; if he be too strict, he is accused of irritability. If
he be too polite, he may seem to be extending favor. A justice of one
court, wishing to be kind, once asked a young counselor whose case had
been dismissed through a technicality to come up and sit on the bench
with him. The young man afterward complained to his friends that the
judge wanted to shame him and make him conspicuous.

There are few judges who dare to cut short the examination of a
witness, although the length and direction of a trial are supposed to
be within the discretion of the judge. He is hindered by the
technicalities of those who insist, hoping for a reversal on appeal,
and sometimes the same technicalities are used to prevent the actual
facts being brought out. The solution probably lies in extending the
powers of the judges over the conduct of a trial.

He has a position of interest and authority and one that commands
respect. In England he dresses for the part in silk stockings and is
next to the king in importance or about equal to a bishop. In Germany
he is a little better than a Herr Pastor or a doctor, but inferior to
a young lieutenant in the army. In France the salaries of the judges
are pitiable. The highest, the president of the Cour de Cassation,
gets $5000 a year and the lower judges only a few hundreds, with no
possibility of earning anything by practicing law, but there the
judges are persuaded to take out the balance of what they should have
in salaries in the honor of their position.

We are so shockingly frank and matter of fact, that we believe that
the conventionality of pomp and circumstance have been too much
regarded in courts and court procedure, that dignity is not
accomplished by wearing a wig, knee breeches, or gowns of ermine and
silk. It is consistent with a plain-spoken