But as the examination of the panel and the opening address come last in point of chronology it will be well to begin at the beginning and see what the labors of the prosecutor are in the initial stages of preparation.  Let us take, for example, some notorious case, where an unfortunate victim has died from the effects of a poisoned pill or draught of medicine, or has been found dead in his room with a revolver bullet in his heart.  Some time before the matter has come into the hands of the prosecutor, the press and the police have generally been doing more or less (usually less) effective work upon the case.  The yellow journals have evolved some theory of who is the culprit and have loosed their respective reporters and “special criminologists” upon him.  Each has its own idea and its own methods—­often unscrupulous.  And each has its own particular victim upon whom it intends to fasten the blame.  Heaven save his reputation!  Many an innocent man has been ruined for life through the efforts of a newspaper “to make a case,” and, of course, the same thing, though happily in a lesser degree, is true of the police and of some prosecutors as well.

In every great criminal case there are always four different and frequently antagonistic elements engaged in the work of detection and prosecution—­first, the police; second, the district attorney; third, the press; and, lastly, the personal friends and family of the deceased or injured party.  Each for its own ends—­be it professional pride, personal glorification, hard cash, or revenge—­is equally anxious to find the evidence and establish a case.  Of course, the police are the first ones notified of the commission of a crime, but as it is now almost universally their duty to inform at once the coroner and also the district attorney thereof, a tripartite race for glory frequently results which adds nothing to the dignity of the administration of criminal justice.

The coroner is at best no more than an appendix to the legal anatomy, and frequently he is a disease.  The spectacle of a medical man of small learning and less English trying to preside over a court of first instance is enough to make the accused himself chuckle for joy.

Not long ago the coroners of New York discovered that, owing to the fact that the district attorney or his representatives generally arrived first at the scene of any crime, there was nothing left for the “medicos” to do, for the district attorney would thereupon submit the matter at once to the grand jury instead of going through the formality of a hearing in the coroner’s court.  The legal medicine men felt aggrieved, and determined to be such early birds that no worm should escape them.  Accordingly, the next time one of them was notified of a homicide he raced his horse down Madison Avenue at such speed that he collided with a trolley car and broke his leg.

Another complained to the district attorney that the assistants of the latter, who had arrived at the scene of an asphyxiation before him, had bungled everything.