a criminal case standing mute, and the propriety of the court admonishing the jury that that fact may not be taken into consideration in their deliberations. It was the judgment of the committee, concurred in by this Association, that the injunction of silence imposed upon the court itself and upon counsel was a survival of an ancient and outworn rule concerning privilege, and that it, along with other rules of the same kind, ought to be eliminated from our practice.

The next thing which the Committee dealt with was the subject of scienter, and the question of the limitations upon the rule for the admission of proof concerning the acts other than those on which a prosecution is based, tending to show a criminal intent on the part of a defendant. Many exceptions to this rule have survived out of what I regard as an undue tenderness for the criminal.

Then the Committee dealt with a subject which subsequently, as Chairman of the Law Reform Committee of the State Bar Association, I also considered. Both of those Committees favored the abolition of the practice which permits double writs of habeas corpus and enables a criminal to repeat applications for release ad infinitum.

I hope this Committe will deal with the proposed abolition of trial by newspaper, at least to the extent of forbidding any threat, or recklessly or intentionally false or misleading statement, which tends or is intended to affect the result of any pending action or proceeding. This it will be noticed leaves unimpaired the present right of newspapers to publish a true, full and fair report of any trial, argument or decision. Comment upon this subject is as pertinent to the trial of civil as it is to

criminal cases. The existing condition is one of the blots upon our civilization so far as it affects the administration of justice. We must have publicity, but we must also have accuracy, reasonable accuracy. This may not prove to be profitable commercially for it requires the employment in the report of judicial proceedings of men who know how to report such proceedings, that is, those who have, from the standpoint of our system of jurisprudence, some comprehension of the light and shade of the episodes in a trial and their effect upon the ultimate result. What now is the situation? A fact or an incident is accentuated in the headlines—a more important fact in the pursuit of truth is suppressed, both in the headlines and frequently in the text, not because of any ulterior motive but solely because it has no sensational or dramatic aspect. The result is that it is generally impossible, from a newspaper account, to make any safe prediction as to the result of a trial. What is the reaction of the public to that? What is the reflex upon the administration of justice? The public, whose courts these are, obtain an impression from the newspapers as to the way in which a case should be decided and then their confidence in the court is impaired when the decision is, as it often is, otherwise.

It is this:

Furthermore the newspaper exploitation of the criminal, the sensational criminal, is of such a character that frequently the undiscriminating person comes to regard him not as a criminal but as a subject of curiosity. He is frequently the recipient of sympathetic, if not partisan, support, and is made the subject of glaring advertisement which in the weak-minded-in the wavering-and in the uneducated youth of the country, may have the most degrading effect. The exploitation of the criminal

has "news value." It makes a human story. Nevertheless, there is a responsibility higher than that imposed by such considerations, and the newspapers themselves in discharging it should have some regard for the effect upon the public.

I cannot but contrast the situation in this country with that in England. It is a joy to any one educated in the profession of the law, and used to its practices, to read the accounts of trials which are contained in such papers as the London Standard and the London Times. I venture the statement that, if our newspapers would print the accounts of trials with the fullness and the fairness with which they are printed in England, they would find many readers whose interest they now little suspect.

One other subject has engaged the interest of many of the leaders of the bar throughout the country. I refer to the general administration of the criminal law. I cannot go over the statistics concerning all kinds of criminal cases, and furthermore they are generally neither adequate nor uniform. It is impossible to make sure comparisons between one state and another, or with another country. If you were to set out on a journey across this country and attempt in each county of each state to find out what percentage of men accused of murder had been convicted and how long it has taken to bring them to trial you would find it the task of Sisyphus. That is not a matter upon which the chief responsibility rests only upon the lawyers; but it is of vital interest to the entire American people. It is one of the gravest blots upon our American civilization that the criminal law is so inadequately enforced in this country, and particularly in relation to the crime of murder. But

sons.

you will find that it is very difficult to make generalizations because you have no very sure basis for compariLet me call your attention to some of the outstanding facts, gathered by an insurance man interested in the question as to making averages upon which insurance rates may be based. In the larger cities of this country during ten years from 1895 to 1904, there were 5927 homicides; that is to say 5 to each 100,000 of the population. In the succeeding ten years beginning with 1904, the number had increased to 12,742; that is, at the rate of 8.01 per 100,000. In other words, there was an increase of 60 per cent in the homicides in the second period of ten years, in the large cities. During the same period, for 100 homicides in this country there were only 13 in England and Wales, 30 in Australia, 31 in Prussia, and 56 in Italy.

In a recent address by a former president of the American Bar Association, Mr. Moorfield Storey, he said that the murder rate in the United States was from ten to twenty times greater than the murder rate of the British Empire and other northwestern European countries.

Now, what about the punishment? Here again we find the difficulty. Between 1884 and 1908 (that is, a period of twenty-four years) there were 131,951 homicides and 2,286 executions. In 1885 there were 1,808 homicides and the executions were 108. Contrast this with the year 1904 when there were 8,482 homicides and 116 executions; that is to say, there were 116 executions as against 108 in the earlier year, although the murders had increased from 1,808 to 8,482.

I pass to the record of convictions in England. These include executions and lesser penalties. In England and Wales in 1913, 314 persons were tried and there were

91 convictions. In 1914, 117 persons were tried for manslaughter and 48 were convicted. In Canada in 1913, of 55 persons charged with murder 23 were convicted, and in 1914, of 62 persons with the same offense 27 were convicted. From these figures I think we may safely say that there is a condition of the administration of the criminal law in relation to the crime of murder which requires our most careful and serious attention.

What is to be done? The task is not one that the bar can adequately undertake, except as one group of many in the community. They do have a responsibility, however, to stimulate public investigation. The subject has been commented upon by various leaders of the bar, but nothing of any consequence has been begun to make an adequate investigation throughout the country. I know nobody so competent as the American Bar Association to stimulate the proper agency to undertake the investigation and procure the funds which will be necessary for that purpose. We are having such subjects as health made the subject of scientific investigation at the expense of private foundations. In the same manner the subject of education is being intensively examined. All sorts of philanthropic projects are being undertaken at the expense of private bodies. Is there any more important subject to engage the attention of public bodies, or of quasi-public bodies, or of private foundations, than the investigation of the causes for the prevalence of crime in this country and its adequate punishment?

At the close of Mr. Taft's remarks a member of the Committee asked the speaker whether the present rules