415
my opinion specially required!
There is nothing in the amount of duties cast upon Special Jurors here to entitle them to exemption from this service. For the last two or three years their work has been light in the extreme, Not above 2 or 3 civil causes at the outside in each year during that period have been tried by them and as the list comprises more than 40 names, it happens that many of the number have never been called on to serve at all in that time.
Sections IV and V of the Ordinance contain an extension of the privilege of not being called up to juries engaged in the trial of capital offences at the discretion of the presiding Judge. If Special Jurors are to be employed in such trials why the same discretion should not be vested in the Judge in such cases as in all others. For nine instances out of ten the prisoners indicted for murder are Chinese, and there would be small reason to fear undue influence in any way or another upon a body of English merchants empanelled...