reëlection nor promotion. Of course these are the two extremes;
fortunately human nature is not what the sociologists and political
theorists would make it.

The political boss is not the unscrupulous ogre that the
muck-rakers picture. He does not order the judge to decide the
hundred-thousand-dollar-contract case in favor of his hench man. He
might like to have him do so but he does not ask. Neither does the
judge lean over backwards in the other direction and imprison the
contractor because he is a friend of the boss. The movements for the
non-partisan election of judge show the recognition of some of these
incongruities.

The fierce bright light that plays about a throne also makes the judge
conspicuous. If he sneezes, if he coughs, if he takes a glass of water
he is probably feverish and cross. If he keeps still he is going to
sleep and not paying attention. If he gets up or sits down it is noted
as indicative of how he is going to decide the case. Every movement is
watched. The position of a judge is not enviable. He is the concrete
object to which the evils of the court-room attach. To the popular
mind he is the court, the law, the method of procedure, the source of
all the technicalities, and the delays. The beaten side will bear him
a grudge, and the winning side think they ought to have got more.

If he be lenient in interpreting the law, he may be called to account
for inability; if he be too strict, he is accused of irritability. If
he be too polite, he may seem to be extending favor. A justice of one
court, wishing to be kind, once asked a young counselor whose case had
been dismissed through a technicality to come up and sit on the bench
with him. The young man afterward complained to his friends that the