414
a
have
than
VI VOND
CVCI
known the
whole jury to consist of foreigners, Portuguese,
Germans and so forth. In ordinary unimportant trials such juries generally contrive to catch the meaning of the Judge and to be guided by him, and little practical harm results — they being guided by Judge and Jury only.
But now and
again,
in
cases
arise here or elsewhere, when it
is absolutely
absolutely essential to the ends of Justice that the Crown or the Prisoner should have the privilege of resort to a more intelligent and independent tribunal, and
this can only be secured here by an enactment similar to the Ordinance under discussion.
To keep up at the present day,
and especially at this distance from home,
the artificial and arbitrary distinction between misdemeanours
and felonies has always seemed
to me
an excess of pedantry in
any case; but to enforce it, done by Section XVII of Ordinance No 18 of 1864, to the exclusion of Special Juries
in the trial of
felonies seems to me
indeed absurd,
It is in cases
of life and
death that Special Juries
are in