Jasper County Democrat, Volume 12, Number 67, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 December 1909 — [?] In Legal Practice. [ARTICLE]

[?] In Legal Practice.

To those untrained In the French practice the spectacle of the judge In the Stein beil case conducting the prosecution front the bench and using all his power In the presence of the Jury to break down the accused has seemed E hideous travesty upon Justice. M. Barthou, the minister of justice, has been so impressed by foreign criticism that he proposes to make a radical change In the role of the French judge by stripping him of the authority to examine witnesses and making him a judicial officer In the English sense of the word Instead of president of the court and chief prosecutor In one. It is said that the new measures were suggested chiefly by American criticism of the strange attitude of the judge in the recent murder trial. Foreigners sometimes comment on the law’s delays in the United States. They have expressed amazement that legal methods such as marked the various Thaw trials and Insanity proceedings should be tolerated by a people that delights in calling itself practical. The Immunity enjoyed by the rich and powerful seems puzzling to them. But Imagine what a reception would await any officer of the government who arose before the great American public and proceeded to say that the reflections of Europeans upon our legal procedure and methods of Justice were well founded and that immediate reforms were necessary if we desired to retain the respect of the world and our own self approval! Incidentally, however, our slowness in conforming our criminal law practice to our moral ideals would receive a stinging rebuke. Mrs. John Jacob Astor that was thinks she will be able “to live quietly In England’’ on $10,000,000 alimony. Millions of English folks and Americans, too, manage to hit the quiet life possessed of less than one-tenth of 1 per cent of that sum. Complaint is made that the Lincoln pennies do not “stack." Bat that Is no argument that a pile of them Is not a good thing to own. The sugar trust professes to be “sorry,” but it was not saying anything like that before the government trap was sprung. If reports are true recent operations more or less surgical eliminated a good deal of appendicitis from the turkey belt. Crushed sugar ought to make a new low record by the time the government gets through pulverizing the trust. Growing Use of Motor Vehicles. Up to 1805 there were only seventy automobiles in the country. Europe was far In the lead in the new industry. and It was several years before American manufacturers mustered up courage enough to follow the lead of energetic France. In 1004 20.000 motorcars were built In the United States, and. according to statistics recently compiled. 55.000 cars were built in 1908. It is expected that the output for 1009 will reach 85.000. at an average price of $1,250. The production for next year may be 200,000, valued at $240,000,000. While the output has enormously increased, there lias been a decided reduction in the average cost of the automobiles. In 1004 the average price was $2,200. This was reduced to $1,250 in 1900. and it is probable that from SSO to SIOO will be lopped from the average next year, although the increasing cost of material prevents radical reduction. Great expansion of the auto car Industry is taking place lu the application of the motor propeller to trucks and farm machinery, it Is on the farm and in country life generally that the greatest progress lu the use of motor vehicles is expected within the next few years. The auto has rediscovered country life, and, best of all. It assures the success of the long campalgu for good roads.

Sugar trust officials may hope that they can get under the plea of “punished enough” by resigning when the horizon looks exceedingly stormy, but a targe portion of the public hopes that they will have tangible evidence to the contrary.