ON TRIAL BY JURY, INCLUDING QUESTIONS OF LAW AND FACT. WITH AN INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER ON THE ORIGIN AND SUMNER WHITNEY AND COMPANY. 1880. Copyright, 1876, BY JOHN PROFFATT. RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE: STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY PREFACE. THE present treatise is an attempt to give the law applicable to all proceedings connected with the jury from its selection to its discharge. It is the first attempt of the kind, and therefore it is hoped it will be received somewhat indulgently, since there have been no models to choose from; and therefore I had to form my own plans of procedure. There have been works written on the history and on some features of the jury system; but this is the first time in this country, as far as I am aware, that a treatise has been written, treating of the history as well as the practical details and proceedings of the jury. This is the more to be wondered at since in France, where the jury is comparatively a modern institution, there are no less than a dozen works on the subject devoted to the practice as well as the theory of the system. I have given considerable attention to the subject of questions of law and fact, and have endeavored to give some satisfactory mode for distinguishing between them. It is hoped that this attempt to gather within a single volume the law relating to proceedings in trial by jury may be favorably regarded by the profession, whose suggestions may hereafter enable me, I trust, to make the work more acceptable to their favor and patronage, and to supply defects which, in spite of all my care and exertion, I know must be found in a work upon a new subject. November 1, 1876. J. P. |