A brilliant letter addressed by Mr. Frederic Harrison to the
Times of this day week, in which he justly treats the root- evil of French life as the perversion of justice in what are supposed to be the interests of party,—deserves to be care- fully read by every man who is interested in the political condition of France, and especially, we would say, by the French Republicans themselves. Mr. Harrison illustrates his case by a full account of the monstrous perversion of justice com- mitted in the condemnation of the President of the Muni- cipal Council of Paris, M. Bonnet Duverdier, for insulting the Marshal and inciting to his assassination—a condemnation arrived at on the strength of the evidence of one police spy against twelve respectable witnesses, who proved that M. Bonnet Duverdier did not say or do what was alleged, and that he did say what was quite inconsistent with what the police spy alleged, and he then enlarges on the terrible pressure put upon Judges in France to serve their political masters, instead of doing their duty as independent Judges, without respect to any one. He tells us that the Judge who dissented in the Bonnet Duverdier case from the judgment, protested in private against any responsibility for it, and remarked to the prisoner's counsel on " the iniquity of the sentence." The whole letter is one of the weightiest and most eloquent we have ever read ; but as we said, we hope the Republicans will take it to heart, and when they have secured their victory, do their best to secure the French Bench against any such prostitution of justice in future, whether in the interest of the Republican or of any other Govern- ment. It will be a difficult reform to accomplish, but one far more urgently needed than even the protection of the liberty of the Press itself. Unless the Republicans show themselves to be infi- nitely fairer to the Conservatives than the Conservatives are to the Republicans, they will not have deserved their victory, and will probably soon throw its fruits away.
Previous page
