A huge State trial began on Friday week in Servia,
where twenty-seven persons, most of them leaders of the Radical party, are accused of high treason in conspiring to assist a man named Knezevitch to murder ex-King Milan. Kneze- %itch, who certainly did try to kill the ex-King, firing at him with a revolver, originally named many of the accused as accomplices ; but on Saturday he withdrew this statement, and denounced only four who are not leaders. The trial, how. ever, still proceeds, the intention being, it is said, to destroy the Radical party by the imprisonment of its chiefs. They were to have been executed, but the Russian and Austrian Governments have intervened to prohibit capital sentences. The evidence as yet is inconclusive, though it is probable that the Radical leaders would have heard of King Milan's death with appreciative calmness; but in Servia, as in France,
nobody cares much about facts. It is certain that Captain Dreyfus is a Jew and that M. Fmk& is a Radical of unusual capacity, and what more evidence of treason do you want? We suppose the world advances, but the increase in the desire for jnstice since the time of Pontius Pilate seems to be terribly local. Pilate would have preferred to do justice, but was afraid of Tiberius, just as the Judges at Rennes were afraid of General Mercier and the Judges at Belgrade are of ex-King Milan. Could not the Czar propose a Congress to discover means for conducting State trials in a reasonably civilised way P The world needs more justice almost as much as more peace.
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