THE " SPECTATOR "—AN AMERICAN VERDICT. [To THE EDITOR OF
THE " SPECTATOR.") SIR,—I spend more or loss of my time in Europe. When I am in England I buy the Spectator; when at home W. H. Smith and Son send it to me, but in both cases I read it through from beginning to end. In this country almost every man occasionally serves upon a criminal or circuit court jury. A personal experience or two of this sort has made me wonder why in the presentation of their cases lawyers so often waste time and effort in an attempt to twist the facts or to present things otherwise than as they appear in the evidence. In nine eases out of ten the jurors are not misled, but determine the value of the evidence themselves, and finally decide the case upon the facts as they are. •
In your handling of American matters I think you are like the jurors, and though politicians may twist the facts or read into them things that are not there, nevertheless, you generally get them about as the average man over here does; you rightly believe in the man in the street in America and intuitively know that he has the same basic integrity and the wish that right may prevail and justice be done that obtains in England. Your patient explanation of facts, your presentation of them from proper view-points, and your cordial goodwill to kinsmen across the sea are widely appreciated. You are doing a great public service to both England and America. Keep it up.—I
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