The Grand Jury

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Title:     The Grand Jury
Author: Henry W. Nevinson [More Titles by Nevinson]

When Mr. Clarkson, of the Education Office, received a summons to attend the Grand Jury, or to answer the contrary at his peril, he was glad. "For now," he thought, "I shall share in the duties of democracy and be brought face to face with the realities of life."

"Mrs. Wilson," he said to the landlady, as she brought in his breakfast, "what does this summons mean by describing the Court as being in the suburbs of the City of London? Is there a Brixton Branch?"

"O Lordy me!" cried the landlady, "I do hope, sir, as you've not got yourself mixed up with no such things; but the Court's nigh against St. Paul's, as I know from going there just before my poor nephew passed into retirement, as done him no good."

"The summons," Mr. Clarkson went on, "the summons says I'm to inquire, present, do, and execute all and singular things with which I may be then and there enjoined. Why should only the law talk like that?"

"Begging your pardon, sir," replied the landlady, "I sometimes do think it comes of their dressing so old-fashioned. But I'd ask it of you not to read me no more of such like, if you'd be so obliging. For it do make me come over all of a tremble."

"I wonder if her terror arises from the hideousness of the legal style or from association of ideas?" thought Mr. Clarkson as he opened a Milton, of which he always read a few lines every morning to dignify the day.

On the appointed date, he set out eastward with an exhilarating sense of change, and thoroughly enjoyed the drive down Holborn among the crowd of City men. "It's rather strangely like going to the seaside," he remarked to the man next him on the motor-'bus. The man asked him if he had come from New Zealand to see the decorations, and arrived late. "Oh no," said Mr. Clarkson, "I seldom think the Colonies interesting, and I distrust decoration in every form."

It was unfortunate, but the moment he mounted the Court stairs, the decoration struck him. There were the expected scenes, historic and emblematic of Roman law, blindfold Justice, the Balance, the Sword, and other encouraging symbols. But in one semicircle he especially noticed a group of men, women, and children, dancing to the tabor's sound in naked freedom. "Please, could you tell me," he asked of a stationary policeman, "whether that scene symbolises the Age of Innocence, before Law was needed, or the Age of Anarchy, when Law will be needed no longer?"

"Couldn't rightly say," answered the policeman, looking up sideways; "but I do wish they'd cover them people over more decent. They're a houtrage on respectable witnesses."

"All art--" Mr. Clarkson was beginning, when the policeman said "Grand Jury?" and pushed him through a door into a large court. A vision of middle-age was there gathering, and a murmur of complaint filled the room--the hurried breakfast, the heat, the interrupted business, the reported large number of prisoners, likely to occupy two days, or even three.

Silence was called, and four or five elderly gentlemen in black-and-scarlet robes--"wise in their wigs, and flamboyant as flamingoes," as a daily paper said of the judges at the Coronation--some also decorated with gilded chains and deep fur collars, in spite of the heat, entered from a side door and took their seats upon a raised platform. Each carried in his hand a nosegay of flowers, screwed up tight in a paper frill with lace-work round the edges, like the bouquets that enthusiasts or the management throw to actresses.

"Are those flowers to cheer the prisoners?" Mr. Clarkson whispered, "or are they the rudimentary survivals of the incense that used to counteract the smell and infection of gaol-fever?"

"Covent Garden," was the reply, and the list of jurors was called. The first twenty-three were sent into another room to select their foreman, and, though Mr. Clarkson had not the slightest desire to be chosen, he observed that the other jurors did not even look in his direction. Finally, a foreman was elected, no one knew for what reasons, and all went back to the Court to be "charged." A gentleman in black-and-scarlet made an hour's speech, reviewing the principal cases with as much solemnity as if the Grand Jury's decisions would affect the Last Judgment, and Mr. Clarkson began to realise his responsibility so seriously that when the jurors were dismissed to their duties, he took his seat before a folio of paper, a pink blotting-pad, and two clean quill pens, with a resolve to maintain the cause of justice, whatever might befall.

"Page eight, number twenty-one," shouted the black-robed usher, who guided the jurors as a dog guides sheep, and wore the cheerful air of congenial labour successfully performed. Turning up the reference in the book of cases presented to each juror, Mr. Clarkson found: "Charles Jones, 35, clerk; forging and uttering, knowing the same to be forged, a receipt for money, to wit, a receipt for fees on a plaint note of the Fulham County Court, with intent to defraud."

"This threatens to be a very abstruse case," he remarked to a red-faced juror on his right.

"A half of bitter would elucidate it wonderful to my mind," was the answer.

But already a policeman had been sworn, and given his evidence with the decisiveness of a gramophone.

"Any questions?" said the foreman, looking round the table. No one spoke.

"Signify, gentlemen, signify!" cried the genial usher, and all but Mr. Clarkson held up a hand.

"Two, four, six, eight, ten, twelve," counted the usher, totting up the hands till he reached a majority. "True Bill, True Bill! Next case. Page eleven, number fifty-two."

"Do you mean to tell me that is all?" asked Mr. Clarkson, turning to his neighbour.

"Say no more, and I'll make it a quart," replied the red-faced man, ticking off the last case and turning up the new one, in which a doctor was already giving his evidence against a woman charged with the wilful murder of her newly-born male child.

"Signify, gentlemen, signify!" cried the usher. "Two, four, six, eight, ten, twelve. True Bill, True Bill! Next case. Page fourteen, number seventy-two."

"Stop a moment," stammered Mr. Clarkson, half rising; "if you please, stop one moment. I wish to ask if we are justified in rushing through questions of life and death in this manner. What do we know of this woman, for instance--her history, her distress, her state of mind?"

"Sit down!" cried some. "Oh, shut it!" cried others. All looked at him with the amused curiosity of people in a tramcar looking at a talkative child. The usher bustled across the room, and said in a loud and reassuring whisper: "All them things has got nothing to do with you, sir. Those is questions for the Judge and Petty Jury upstairs. The magistrates have sat on all these cases already and committed them for trial; so all you've got to do is to find a True Bill, and you can't go wrong."

"If we can't go wrong, there's no merit in going right," protested Mr. Clarkson.

"Next case. Page fourteen, number seventy-two," shouted the usher again, and as the witness was a Jew, his hat was sent for. "There's a lot of history behind that hat," said Mr. Clarkson, wishing to propitiate public opinion.

"Wish that was all there was behind it," said the juror on his left. The Jew finished his evidence and went away. The foreman glanced round, and the usher had already got as far as "Signify," when a venerable juror, prompted by Mr. Clarkson's example, interposed.

"I should like to ask that witness one further question," he said in a fine Scottish accent, and after considerable shouting, the Jew was recalled.

"I should like to ask you, my man," said the venerable juror, "how you spell your name?" The name was spelt, the juror carefully inscribed it on a blank space opposite the charge, sighed with relief, and looked round. "Signify, gentlemen, signify!" cried the usher. "Two, four, six, eight, ten, twelve. True Bill, True Bill! Next case. Page six, number eleven."

Number eleven was a genuine murder case, and sensation pervaded the room when the murdered man's wife was brought in, weeping. She sobbed out the oath, and the foreman, wishing to be kind, said, encouragingly, "State briefly what you know of this case."

She sobbed out her story, and was led away. The foreman glanced round the tables.

"I think we ought to hear the doctor," said the red-faced man. The doctor was called and described a deep incised wound, severing certain anatomical details.

"I think we ought to hear the constable," said the red-faced man, and there was a murmur of agreement. A policeman came in, carrying a brown paper parcel. Having described the arrest, he unwrapped a long knife, which was handed round the tables for inspection. When it reached the red-faced juror, he regarded the blade closely up and down, with gloating satisfaction. "Are those stains blood?" he asked the policeman.

"Yes, sir; them there is the poor feller's blood."

The red-faced man looked again, and suddenly turning upon Mr. Clarkson, went through a pantomime of plunging the knife into his throat. At Mr. Clarkson's horrified recoil he laughed himself purple.

"Well said the Preacher you may know a man by his laughter," Mr. Clarkson murmured, while the red-faced man patted him amicably on the back.

"No offence, I hope; no offence!" he said. "Come and have some lunch. I always must, and I always do eat a substantial lunch. Nice, juicy cut from the joint, and a little dry sherry? What do you say?"

"Thank you very much indeed," said Mr. Clarkson, instantly benign. "You are most kind, but I always have coffee and a roll and butter."

"O my God!" exclaimed the red-faced man, and speaking across Mr. Clarkson to another substantial juror, he entered into discussion on the comparative merits of dry sherry and champagne-and-bitters.

Soon after two they both returned in the comfortable state of mind produced by the solution of doubt. But Mr. Clarkson's doubts had not been solved, and his state of mind was far from comfortable. All through the lunch hour he had been tortured by uncertainty. A plain duty confronted him, but how could he face it? He hated a scene. He abhorred publicity as he abhorred the glaring advertisements in the streets. He had never suffered so much since the hour before he had spoken at the Oxford Union on the question whether the sense for beauty can be imparted by instruction. He closed his eyes. He felt the sweat standing on his forehead. And still the cases went on. "Two, four, six, eight, ten, twelve. True Bill. True Bill. Two, four, six, eight...."

"Now then, sleepy!" cried the red-faced man in his ear, giving him a genial dig with his elbow. Mr. Clarkson quivered at the touch, but he rose.

"Gentlemen," he began, "I wish to protest against the continuation of this farce."

The jury became suddenly alert, and his voice was drowned in chaos. "Order, order! Chair, chair!" they shouted. "Everybody's doing it!" sang one.

"I call that gentleman to order," said the foreman, rising with dignity. "He has previously interrupted and delayed our proceedings, without bringing fresh light to bear upon our investigations. After the luncheon interval, I was pleased to observe that for one cause or another--I repeat, for one cause or another--he was distinctly--shall I say somnolent, gentlemen? Yes, I will say somnolent. And I wish to inform him that the more somnolent he remains, the better we shall all be pleased."

"Hear, hear! Quite true!" shouted the jury.

"Does it appear to you, sir, fitting to sit here wasting time?" Mr. Clarkson continued, with diminishing timidity. "Does it seem to you a proper task for twenty-three apparently rational beings--"

"Twenty-two! Twenty-two!" cried the red-faced man, adding up the jurors with the end of a pen, and ostentatiously omitting Mr. Clarkson.

The jurors shook with laughter. They wiped tears from their eyes. They rolled their heads on the pink blotting-paper in their joy. When quiet was restored, the foreman proceeded:

"I have already ruled that gentleman out of order, and I warn him that if he perseveres in his contumacious disregard of common decency and the chair, I shall proceed to extremities as the law directs. We are here, gentlemen, to fulfil a public duty as honourable British citizens, and here we will remain until that duty is fulfilled, or we will know the reason why."

He glanced defiantly round, assuming an aspect worthy of the last stand at Maiwand. Looking at Mr. Clarkson as turkeys might look at a stray canary, the jurors expressed their applause.

But the genial usher took pity, and whispered across the table to him, "It'll all come right, sir; it'll all come right. You wait a bit. The Grand Jury always rejects one case before it's done; sometimes two."

And sure enough, next morning, while Mr. Clarkson was reading Burke's speeches which he had brought with him, one of the jurors objected to the evidence in the eighty-seventh case. "We cannot be too cautious, gentlemen," he said, "in arriving at a decision in these delicate matters. The apprehension of blackmail in relation to females hangs over every living man in this country."

"Delicate matters; blackmail; relation to females; great apprehension of blackmail in these delicate matters," murmured the jury, shaking their heads, and they threw out the Bill with the consciousness of an independent and righteous deed.

Soon after midday, the last of the cases was finished, and having signified a True Bill for nearly the hundredth time, the jurors were conducted into the Court where a prisoner was standing in the dock for his real trial. As though they had saved a tottering State, the Judge thanked them graciously for their services, and they were discharged.

"Just a drop of something to show there's no ill-feeling?" said the red-faced man as they passed into the street.

"Thank you very much," replied Mr. Clarkson warmly. "I assure you I have not the slightest ill-feeling of any kind. But I seldom drink."

"Bless my soul!" said the red-faced man. "Then, what _do_ you do?"

[The end]
Henry W. Nevinson's essay: The Grand Jury

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