The judge's chair is ordinarily a revolving one with a dip backward.
Stationary chairs are trying, for those who have to remain quiet for
so many hours at a time, and the swinging back and forth and twisting
about gives a little relaxation.
In front of the judge's dais are the counselors' or lawyers' tables,
and at one side in front and below usually another table for
reporters. It is somewhat like the arrangement in baronial halls where
there was an upper and lower table and some sat below the salt and
others above.
On one side, opposite, but not as high, is the jury-box. This is a pen
with twelve seats within a high-sided inclosure like an old-fashioned
pew. What the object of the inclosure may be is uncertain, unless it
is a relic of a time when it was necessary to imprison the jurors.
Jury duty has doubtless always been arduous and disagreeable, and in
earlier days men were probably as anxious to escape serving on the
jury as they are to-day. In one of the courts, which was not supposed
to be for jury trials, twelve men once sat on a case without any
jury-box in plain chairs and at the side of the room. They were
extremely uncomfortable themselves; their legs were exposed and they
seemed shockingly unconventional.
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