CHANGES MADE IN COURSE OF TIME.

In the Jury System.--The jurors were originally, as has been said, persons
acquainted with the facts. After the Norman conquest, it came about that
the jury consisted of twelve persons disinterested and _unacquainted_ with
the facts. Probably the change gradually came about from the difficulty of
getting twelve men eligible to the jury who knew of the facts. Persons
ineligible to the jury were then invited to give it information, but not
to join it in the verdict. The next step, taken about 1400 A.D., was to
require these witnesses to give their evidence in open court, subject to
examination and cross-examination. The testimony of the witnesses,
however, was still merely supplementary. Then in the time of Queen Anne,
about 1707 A.D., it was decided that any person who had knowledge of the
facts of the case should appear as a _witness_, that the jury should
consist of persons unacquainted with the facts, and that the verdict
should be rendered in accordance with the evidence. And so it is to this
day, both in England and America. [Footnote: The best history of the jury
system is probably Forsyth's.]

"It is not true, however, that a man is disqualified from serving on a
jury simply because he has heard or read of the case, and has formed and
expressed some impression in regard to its merits; if it were, the
qualifications for jury service in cases that attract great attention
would be ignorance and stupidity. The test, therefore, is not whether the
juryman is entirely ignorant of the case, but whether he has formed such
an opinion as would be likely to prevent him from impartially weighing the
evidence and returning a verdict in accordance therewith." [Footnote:
Dole's Talks about Law, p. 59.]

In the Officers.--As has been said, there were in the old Saxon courts no