Baltimore Evening Sun (7 July 1911): 6.

From the Sixth Article of the Constitution of the United States:

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed. [Laughter.]

From the Fifth and Twenty-first Articles of the Maryland Declaration of Rights:

That the Inhabitants of Maryland are entitled to the Common Law of England, and the trial by jury, according to the course of that law * * * That in all criminal cases every man hath a right * * * to a speedy trial by an impartial jury, without whose unanimous consent he ought not to be found guilty. [Roars of merriment.]

Suppose a poor man to be arrested in Baltimore this afternoon on some charge of which he is innocent. Suppose that he has no friend or relative rich enough to go on his bond and no money to pay the extortionate fee of a professional bondsman. How long will he have to lie in jail—a hot, hot place, believe me, in the good old summer time!—until he can get that fair and “speedy” jury trial to which he is entitled under the Constitutions of Maryland and the United States? Just two months and one week—if he is very lucky. If he is not lucky be may have to wait three months.

This, brethren, is because the comfort of judges and juries, in the hot weather, is set by our customs, if not by our Constitutions, above the theoretical rights of the indigent and jailed. One judge, true enough, sits all summer—but without a jury. If the man in jail is guilty and wants to admit it, he can go before that judge and plead guilty—and so go back to jail. And if, being innocent, he is willing to waive his constitutional right to a jury trial, he can go before that same judge, plead not guilty, and take his trial without a jury. But if he wants to be tried by his peers—a right specifically and doubly guaranteed to him—he must stay in jail through the hadeslike heat of a Maryland July, a Maryland August and the better part of a Maryland September, until the courts resume their regular sessions at the beginning of the September term.

But who cares? The rascal is guilty! He deserves to sweat abominably! Let him keep out of jail if he would be cool in summer! Is all this, however, quite true? Isn’t it a fact that poor men as well as rich men are sometimes accused of crime unjustly—that even miserable and friendless darkeys, for all the hot effort of the police, are sometimes acquitted when they come to trial? Isn’t it a fact that more than two prisoners out of every five are so acquitted in Baltimore—that the percentage of convictions in our criminal courts is but .57 or .58? And isn’t it true that even a poor darkey has a clear right to “a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury,” and that no court or judicial officer, or other person or persons, high or low, has any right to deprive him of that right, or to condition it or limit it in any manner whatsoever?

But not many prisoners, you may argue, are in any such fix. Nine out of ten of those who come before the magistrates and are held for the grand jury are able to get bail. All the same, there were in the Baltimore City Jail, at noon yesterday, just 115 men and 15 women who were not able to get bail, and who were there and then beginning 75-day terms which, in the cases of 42 per cent. of them, or 54 altogether, will turn out, by the verdicts of juries in September, to have been undeserved and unwarranted by law.

The New York Evening Sun, remarking upon the undoubted fact that the legal profession stands in sore need of a hearty muck-raking, proposes that the following questions be submitted to all lawyers upon the court rolls, and, that those who refuse to answer be sent to the workhouse:

• Did you ever compound a felony?
• Did you ever hold up the final papers to a suit until the unhappy client agreed to increase your fee?
• Did you ever meet a judge and discuss the case “in the club?”
• Do you make it a practice as “an officer of the court” to “coach witnesses” prior to the trial?
• In recovering money in a damage suit have you over charged more than half the amount recovered?
• Have you ever knowingly divided “the swag” of a thief for defending him in court?
• Have you ever sought a “queer” and sensational divorce case for the “advertising in it,” and indulged a licentious mind in asking a weeping woman or shame-faced man useless and disgraceful details as a joke?

A wise suggestion—but why not extend the examination to the members of all other professions? For instance, to clergymen:

• Did you ever “lift” a sermon, or an idea for a sermon, without credit to the author?
• Did you ever join in the holy bonds of matrimony a person who was palpably consumptive, or alcoholic, or insane?
• Did you ever flatter a bishop or a rich parishioner?

And so on and so on and so on. And from clergymen to journalists, and from journalists to physicians, and from physicians to statesmen, and from statesmen to policemen, and from policemen to actors, and from actors to judges, and so on and so on. And so on and so on and so on.

What will cure seasickness? Several Western gazettes discuss the problem profoundly, one recommending whisky sours, another sponge baths and a third some vague mixture of bromides. Let me enter the discussion by recommending a drugless remedy—one that I have tried four or five times, and always with success. Here it is:

When the first shivers begin to slide up and down your spine, leave the glaring deck, go to your room and lie down, not in your berth, but on your couch, and not on your back, but on your side. One side is as good as the other—but avoid lying on your back. If you do so nausea will immediately supervene. But once on your side your stomach will cease to tremble, your heartbeat will slacken, that ghastly tickling in your esophagus will stop, and you will fall into a state of dreamy comfort. Take up a book and read for a while. In an hour you will be asleep.

Most seasick persons cling to the deck—and there the blinding light gives them headache, the dying spray soaks and saddens them, and it takes them days to get well. Don’t be afraid of going below. The air down there, on any half-decent ship, is almost as fresh as on deck. Besides it is quiet there and it is warm and a steward is within call. And if the worst comes to the worst and the remedy won’t work—well, it is certainly better to be sick in private than in public.

Nota Bena. A small swig of good brandy, say half or three-quarters of a pint, makes sleep come sooner and so helps the cure.

H. L. Mencken