NEWS OF THE WEEK.
ON Monday, M. Bei:haat, Minister of Public Works during the Ministry which consented to the Panama Lottery Loan, and the introducer of the measure, was arrested and lodged in the prison of Mazes. On Tuesday, the four Panama directors, MM. Ferdinand and Charles de Lesseps, Marius Fontane and Baron Cottu, and the contractor, M. Eiffel, charged with raising money by false pretences, and rills- appropriating the same, came up for trial before the 'Court of Appeal at the Patois de Justice. There was no demonstration, though extraordinary precautions were taken to prevent the rising threatened by the anarchists. M. Charles de Lesseps gave his evidence on Tuesday ; his general line of defence being that it was "necessary, at any price, to finish the Canal," and that the Com- pany was hopelessly blackmailed from the very beginning by the newspapers and speculators. "Nearly all the papers were holding out their hands." He was careful not to ask Baron Reinach what he did with the large sums of money paid over to him. "Half a millioh of francs were given to Cornelius Herz. Everybody knows what his influence was, and we had much trouble to escape giving more." Questioned again as to the warrants to bearer, the defendant at first objected to answer, but, after much hesita- tion, he said :—"In 1886, when we were applying for the Lottery Loan Bill, M. Baihaut, Minister of Public Works, asked me for a million, one instalment to be paid on his in- troducing the Bill, and the second on its being passed. As it was not passed, I only gave him 375,000 fr." The sensation caused by this disclosure was very great, though it was fore- shadowed by M. Balhaut's arrest. On Wednesday, M. Eiffel gave his evidence, and on being asked by the Judge to explain his charges of six millions for transporting materials never delivered by him, "in a confused reply," admitted the fact. Thursday's evidence was directed to showing how Baron Reinach " sucked the blood of the enterprise."
