FEES OF JURORS.
Mr. McDonald's jurors'fee bill [H. R. 83] coming up with the Judiciary Committee recommendation--
Mr. WILLIAMS of Knox, proposed to change the mileage from four to six cents.
Mr. BRITTON proposed ineffectually to make it five cents.
Mr. PIERCE of Porter, said that he would prefer to have the mileage remain as it is. The House had started out with the purpose of legislating with a view to the strictest economy, and in the matter of jury fees, having passed through a quarter of a century with no difficulty with the mileage at the present figure, he could see no reason for advancing it. He was in favor of leaving the matter just as it stands.
Mr. McFADIN regarded jurymen as the most poorly paid men about the courts. The lawyers, he said, the judges, and the officers of the court, fatten on their fees, while the jurymen starve, and besides not getting pay enough to insure good eating, are deprived, if they are drinking men, of their accustomed draughts of Godfrey's cordial, or such other beverage as their fancy may select. Four cents a mile he said, will not in most cases, pay, even, fare on cars, where the juror summoned lives at any distance from the court house, and he favored the advance to six cents.
Mr. VATER had always thought the reduction of fees in this particular, economizing in the wrong direction. He favored the six cents.
Mr. BOWEN thought the advance well deserved. He had often been called upon to commiserate the condition of jurors in Wayne county, held at court on such small pay as to compel their living on bread and cakes purchased at the baker shop, and he favored the advance for the purpose of having jurors better fed.
Mr. WILLIAMS of Knox, said, that in reply to the plea of economy urged by the gentleman from Porter [Mr. Pierce] that the gentleman and his friends had not hesitated to pay men five dollars a day for working around the hall of the House; they were willing to legislate additional salaries to the Judges, increasing their pay from one thousand five hundred to two thousand dollars a year, but when it is proposed to increase the mileage of jurors, the hardest worked men about the court, two cents a mile; it was only then that the necessity for economy seemed to command their attention. He thought the simple purpose of the amendment appealed so strongly to every man's sense of justice, that he was surprised to see the proposition meet with opposition.
Mr. OVERMYER had only to say, in reply to the gentleman from Knox, in his charge of extravagance upon the Republican side of the House, that if the gentleman would fairly compare the records of the two parties, as regards their character for extravagance he would find by looking into the old journals of the House, when the gentleman's party was in the ascendant, a record of prodigality and extravagance in the presence of which his attitude to-day as an accuser of the Republican party, would he anything but creditable to his candor and justice.
The amendment offered by Mr. Williams of Knox, was then agreed to.
Mr. UNDERWOOD proposed to amend by striking out "two dollars" and inserting "two dollars and a half" for per diem of jurors, and urged its propriety. In support of the amendment he said that he offered it with a view to giving adequate compensation to men who are torn away from their work to settle the disputes of others. The constitution he said, demanded adequate compensation for those who were called upon to assist in the meting out of justice. The law lays hold of the farmer in the seed time and in the harvest, takes the merchant from his desk and the mechanic from his workshop, and he thought their compensation for services in the jury-box should be as liberal as, in justice to all, it could be made. He regarded the advance as commended by every consideration of justice and equity.
Mr. RATLIFF opposed the increase of pay of jurors for the reason that, thought it might page: 226[View Page 226] not be beyond what the time of the juror is worth, it would impose an additional expense that would be burdensome. To increase the pay fifty cents per diem would, he said, in his county alone entail, in one year, an additional expense of seven hundred dollars, and he thought that rather dear justice to his constituents.
Mr. BOWEN opposed the increase, not because the amendment contemplated a larger compensation to jurors than the service merited, but because he thought the people, in view of the heavy additional expense, would prefer to have the law remain as it is.
Mr. DAVIDSON said, that as a general thing, the people from whom the jurors are drawn, come to the courts to see what was going on, to get information and learn the matter of doing the business of the court, and are all well enough satisfied with the fees. They would in many cases be in attendance at any rate, and the increase of pay would only serve to sharpen the appetite for a seat in the jury box, and tend to add to the already too large class known as professional jurors. He regarded the jury fees at present as high enough. The compensation is adequate for the dispensation of justice by men not in the jury box through the greed of gain, and he would prefer not to offer any temptation to a change of the status in that regard. He was therefore opposed to the amendment.
Mr. OSBORN proposed to add to the amendment, "Provided that when the juror resides more than five miles from the court house, he shall be allowed two dollars and a half per day"
Mr. COTTON expressed surprise that any one should offer such an amendment. Could the reason for such discrimination be, that a man who lives more than five miles from the Court House is better qualified to sit as juror than the man who lives within five miles, and that therefore his services are more valuable? What other reasoning could have induced the introduction of the amendment?
Mr. VATER favored the amendment. The man who came that distance must be at an expense in remaining away from home, and he should be paid a higher rate than that man who could attend at court and live at home.
Mr. McFADIN said: In all places there are certain persons sometimes considered and called professional jurors, hanging round the Court House to make a little money. We should not make the pay large enough to encourage such persons to make their profession a business and a study. It should be the effort of the Legislature to discourage professional jurors, and the increase of compensation provided for by the amendment, he regarded as a move in just the opposite direction. To think of offering extra compensation for jurors who happen to live more than five miles away from a Court House, in these days of railroads and velocipedes, is to offer a premium on professional jurymen, and a standing invitation to all the old fogies and fossils in the country, to sit around the Court Houses with a view to making a living off the jury box. Two dollars a day, and six cents mileage he thought should be sufficient. All men having the good of their country at heart, should be willing to serve a jury for two dollars a day. In reply to a question by Mr. Underwood, Mr. McFadin added, that no man as a good citizen, called upon to decide between neighbor and neighbor, would think of serving on a jury for the sake of the fees.
Mr. PIERCE, of Porter, concurred in the words of Mr. McFadin. When called upon to serve as jurors we all give up something to the common good,feeling that others may be called upon to serve as jurors for us when we may have to go into Court. He had heard no complaint about the two dollars per diem. He did not say how much per day it might be worth to stay at the Court House. The point was: this service is a duty which we all owe to the State.
Mr. GORDON suggested; that the matter of this bill was embraced in a Senate bill now before the Committee on Fees and Salaries.
Mr. WILDMAN moved ineffectually to lay the subject on the table.
Mr. OSBORN, said that he could fully agree with the gentleman from Cass, [Mr. McFadin] in regard to professional jurors. They are a class that should be discouraged, and the effect of the amendment would be in that direction. The amendment proposes discouraging this genus by discriminating in favor of the farmer, who lives a long distance off, and who reaps no profit even at the advance in compensation, from acting as a juror. In answer to the gentleman from Whitley, who asks why this discrimination in favor of the man who lives more than five miles from the court house, he would say it was meant to compensate him partially for the expense occasioned by having to remain away from his home.
Mr. COFFROTH, while he admitted the justness of the proposition, and while he would like to vote for the amendment were it within the purview of Legislative authority, regarded it as in contravention of that provision of the Constitution prohibiting special legislation, and quoted in support of his position, Hough on Special Legislation.
The SPEAKER could not decide positively without investigation, but was inclined to believe the point well taken and thereupon ruled the amendment out of order.
On motion of Mr. WILSON, Mr. Underwood's amendment was laid on the table.
page: 227[View Page 227]On motion of Mr. SHOAFF, the witness' mileage was made six cents.
Mr. CAVE proposed "one dollar" for the witness fee before a justice of the peace.
Mr. WILSON opposed the amendment, and expressed the belief that if the friends of the bill wished its success, they had better have it recommitted to the committee, for he regarded the tacking on of amendments, a virtual killing of the bill.
On motion by Mr. MILES the amendment was laid on the table.
Mr. OSBORN proposed to amend by inserting appropriately: that witnesses who reside any other county than where the cause is pending for trial, attending court as witnesses in behalf of the State, in State prosecutions, shall be allowed per diem, payable out of the county treasury where the cause is pending. He explained by stating that in change of venue in State cases, no provision is made by law for the payment of witnesses who are compelled to go to another country.
Mr. BUSKIRK stated it as his belief that there is a statute authorizing Judges to make allowance in such cases. He knew, he said, at he had made allowances in such cases when on the bench.
On motion of Mr. WILSON, the amendment was laid on the table.
And then the bill as amended was ordered be engrossed.
Mr. Bobo's bill [H. R. 3] providing for suitable persons to hold Common Pleas Courts, coming, up, with the amendment of the Committee on the Judiciary, making it applicable to special terms only--
Mr. McFADIN moved to recommit the bill, with instructions to amend, so that the person sitting in the place of the judge shall also receive his pay for the time out of the salary of the judge failing to attend at any special or regular session.
Mr. NEFF moved, ineffectually, to amend the motion to commit, by striking out so much the amendment as relates to deducting the pay of the judge pro tem from the salary of the judge in whose place he acts.
The amendment offered by Mr. McFADIN was then agreed to and the bill was ordered engrossed for the third reading.
Mr. Cave's Road Viewers and Receivers bill [H. R. 110] (two dollars a day,) coming up with the committee amendment for one dollar and a half per day--
The Committee's amendment was adopted, and so the bill was ordered to be engrossed.
Mr. Ruddell's fifth Circuit Court bill [H. R. 72] coming up, with the committee's recommendation, it was ordered to the engrossment.
Mr. Cotton's bill [H. R. 57] excepting judgments on actions of suits from the benefit of appraisement laws coming up--
Mr. COFFROTH explained the provisions of the bill.
The bill was ordered to be engrossed.
Mr. Higbee's Kosciusko and Noble court bill [H. R. 59] coming up, it was ordered to the engrossment.
Mr. Ruddell's twelfth Common Pleas District bill [H. R. 64] coming up, with the committee's recommendation, it was ordered to the engrossment.
Mr. Underwood's incorporated towns bill [H. R. 50] coming up, with the committee's recommendation, it was ordered to be engrossed.
Mr. Underwood's building association amendment bill [H. R. 18] coming up, with the committee's recommendation, it was ordered to be engrossed.
Mr. Dunn's felony act amendment bill [H. R. 94] coming up, it was ordered to the engrossment.
Mr. Johnson of Parke's streets and alleys bill [H. R. 34] coming up, with the committee's recommendation, it was ordered to the engrossment.
And then--
The House adjourned till to-morrow Morning at nine o'clock
