Full Text Archive

Full Text Archive
https://www.fulltextarchive.com
shelved by some fortunate turn of chance, and who would not, in all likelihood, be as efficient as
the lawyers who pleaded before them if they were put in the same position. He had no respect
for judges--he knew too much about them. He knew how often they were sycophants, political
climbers, political hacks, tools, time-servers, judicial door-mats lying before the financially and
politically great and powerful who used them as such. Judges were fools, as were most other
people in this dusty, shifty world. Pah! His inscrutable eyes took them all in and gave no sign.
His only safety lay, he thought, in the magnificent subtley of his own brain, and nowhere else.
You could not convince Cowperwood of any great or inherent virtue in this mortal scheme of
things. He knew too much; he knew himself.
When the judge finally cleared away the various minor motions pending, he ordered his clerk to
call the case of the City of Philadelphia versus Frank A. Cowperwood, which was done in a
clear voice. Both Dennis Shannon, the new district attorney, and Steger, were on their feet at
once. Steger and Cowperwood, together with Shannon and Strobik, who had now come in and
was standing as the representative of the State of Pennsylvania--the complainant--had seated
themselves at the long table inside the railing which inclosed the space before the judge's desk.
Steger proposed to Judge Payderson, for effect's sake more than anything else, that this
indictment be quashed, but was overruled.
A jury to try the case was now quickly impaneled--twelve men out of the usual list called to
serve for the month--and was then ready to be challenged by the opposing counsel. The
business of impaneling a jury was a rather simple thing so far as this court was concerned. It
consisted in the mandarin-like clerk taking the names of all the jurors called to serve in this court
for the month--some fifty in all--and putting them, each written on a separate slip of paper, in a
whirling drum, spinning it around a few times, and then lifting out the first slip which his hand
encountered, thus glorifying chance and settling on who should be juror No. 1. His hand
reaching in twelve times drew out the names of the twelve jurymen, who as their names were
called, were ordered to take their places in the jury-box.
Cowperwood observed this proceeding with a great deal of interest. What could be more
important than the men who were going to try him? The process was too swift for accurate
judgment, but he received a faint impression of middle-class men. One man in particular,
however, an old man of sixty-five, with iron-gray hair and beard, shaggy eyebrows, sallow
complexion, and stooped shoulders, struck him as having that kindness of temperament and
breadth of experience which might under certain circumstances be argumentatively swayed in
his favor. Another, a small, sharp-nosed, sharp-chinned commercial man of some kind, he
immediately disliked.
"I hope I don't have to have that man on my jury," he said to Steger, quietly.
"You don't," replied Steger. "I'll challenge him. We have the right to fifteen peremptory
challenges on a case like this, and so has the prosecution."
When the jury-box was finally full, the two lawyers waited for the clerk to bring them the small
board upon which slips of paper bearing the names of the twelve jurors were fastened in rows in
order of their selection--jurors one, two, and three being in the first row; four, five, and six in the
second, and so on. It being the prerogative of the attorney for the prosecution to examine and
challenge the jurors first, Shannon arose, and, taking the board, began to question them as to
their trades or professions, their knowledge of the case before the court, and their possible
205 / 312

---