A murder trial which has taken place this week in
Algiers, shows how very far juries carry the right to kill under provocation of infidelity which the Code allows to French husbands. A newspaper editor, named Omessa, had reasonable grounds for being uneasy as to his wife's conduct, but was cognisant of no undoubted facts upon which to base a charge of domestic treachery. In a fit of jealousy, however, he went to his home and shot his wife, and then proceeded to kill the man he suspected of being her lover. Before dying, both the woman and the man denied all guilt, and there was no evidence to make it certain that the husband was not mistaking a foolish flirtation for crime. Yet the jury found. a verdict of "Not guilty," and this notwithstanding that sufficient time elapsed between the two acts of homicide to allow the husband to realise what he was doing.
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