The long trial of Landru, the degenerate creature who was
charged with having murdered at least ten women and disposed of their bodies by burning, has come to an end and he has been sentenced to death. To English minds a French trial is always a source of astonishment. It is nearly three years since Landru was arrested. But the procedure of the court seems to observers here even more surprising than the law's delays. The rhetorical accusations and suggestions of the prosecutor and the Judge, the threatening pose they adopt, and the presumption, every- where sequestered in the atmosphere of the trial, that the person is guilty unless he can be proved innocent, is all an in- version of what we are accustomed to here. Although no bodies could be produced but only some tell-tale bones and some of the personal belongings of the women who had disappeared, the circumstantial evidence against Landru was overwhelming.
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