That lumbering hulk, American justice, which is sometimes fortunate enough to crawl within seven years of its shadow and which has long since all hered in to disgrace abroad is undergoing another bit of humiliation in the courthouse at Dedham these days.

And the latest bit of obstruction that the conniving minds of money-in-the-hand barristers can plot to hinder the movements of the notorious snail is the presentation of evidence to prove that Abe Faber is a schizomaniac. Now don't let that word stop you as it must have choked the 12 tried and true men who go to make up the Millen-Faber jury. For uninformed souls, schizomania is a cute little word for that ultra-modern disease, a "split personality." At this point, one thing seems certain. The effect that the mention of this alphabetical masterpiece would have on the 12 doctors, lawyers, beggars and thieves that usually form the backbone of a representative American jury, would be to confuse them so completely that the already shaky wheels of justice would groan under the strain.

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District Attorney Dewing may stop the trial, and Judge Brown may rule out the evidence on insanity, but in any event, the legal system is getting another big jolt. The "wheels of justice" are swiftly becoming bogged again.

Oddly enough one of the best possible solutions to the problem was offered by one of the defendants when he asked for a trial without jury. For if there is one tradition that might well go by the board it is America's insistence on a jury trial. Juries have been hailed throughout the ages as the guardians of justice but people have lost sight of the neat little tricks that Father Time is only too glad to play. Since the time when the jury was created to give the defendant a break Father Time's sickle has done a lot of work. And one of the changes that has come about--improved methods of communication--has gone a long way toward weakening the value of a jury. It seems as if the court, in order to get an unblased jury, must at the same time choose men whose intellect and knowledge have prepared them for nothing else. In other words, unintelligence is the requisite for jury service.

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It is easy enough to see what will happen if schizomaniac is introduced as evidence to prove Faber's innocence, disregarding for the moment whether or not he is a schizomaniac, a dipsomaniac, a kleptomaniac or a spoofomaniac. The windy, spectacular oratory of the attorney for the defense is weapon enough to swing any jury from what little reason the members may possess to their emotional, misinformed sentimentality. But it makes wonderful newspaper copy!

Certainly personality is a tricky enough substance for the specialist without splitting it, and when this combination is put before 12 idealistic, uninformed tradesmen the result is fatal. The solution is not to exclude the evidence but to exterminate America's jingoistic love for the jury.