The French Judges have taken a severe, though, we think,
a just view of the offences of the Panama directors. They declare that M. Ferdinand de Lesseps, the founder of the project, his son, M. Charles de Lesseps, and the two directors, M. Fontana and M. Cottu, are guilty of deceiving the public into subscriptions by false representations, manipulation of figures, and suppressions of fact. They accordingly, besides certain almost nominal fines, which are, it appears, required
by French law, condemned the two De Lesseps to five years' imprisonment, and MM. Fontane and Cottu to two years'. M. Eiffel, the contractor, who forgot to supply the goods he charged for, was exonerated from the charge of swindling, but sentenced to two years' imprisonment for breach of trust. The sentences are described as terribly severe; but there can be no doubt that the Canal was latterly a colossal fraud, and that the condemned allowed, if they did not profit by, the misap- propriation of enormous sums of money belonging to poor people. M. Garnet will hardly venture, in the face of the wronged shareholders, to pardon any of the accused, whose single defence really is, that they thought desperate bribery the only chance for those who had trusted them; but means will doubtless be found of leaving M. Ferdinand de Lesseps to die in peace. We are not of those who admire his reckless career; but to subject a man afflicted with senile amentia to prison discipline, would be meaningless cruelty, calculated to arouse disgust with a just severity. The sentences will, it may be hoped, warn French promoters, jobbers, and financiers, that there are limits to endurance, and that they are expected to give work in return for their enormous profits, and not skim off the cream from all industry by manipulating figures.
