The Eyraud-Bompard trial ended on Saturday in a verdict of
" Guilty." The penalty of death was imposed upon the male prisoner, but his accomplice only received a sentence of twenty years' penal servitude, owing to the fact that in her case the jury found extenuating circumstances. In our opinion, there was no sort of excuse for this finding ; but the youth of the murderess, and the fact that she was very much under Eyraud's influence, seem to have influenced the jury. The knowledge that the Public Prosecutor did not press for an unqualified verdict in her case, no doubt also affected the minds of the jury. We have commented elsewhere on the very satisfactory fact that the plea of hypnotic sug- gestion was practically unheeded by the Court; but we cannot help expressing our sense of disgust and indignation at the way in which the whole trial was conducted. The scene at the end was a disgrace to the people of Paris. After the verdict had been pronounced, and while the prisoners were waiting "for their sentence, the vilest epithets," accord- ing to one of the correspondents, " devised by the canaille of Paris were uttered by the lips of ladies and gentlemen who are supposed to be educated and enlightened Parisians."
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