The Express.
London, England, 1864-03-29 00:00:00

HOW COLD rr HAS BKEH.—HICCIRISTTI
end ZAMBItAII celebrated nuamoiccrious will cor-
m:ay register the lowest teoperatare. Mee Va. ed.-1.151410d.
; 69, Coreldll ; 1153, Flecketreet ; sad 121. Begentetreat.
wanted.

THE DEPOTS AIITHENTIQUES for SALE
of the SNUFFS, Tobacoos, and Op" manufactured or t'-
mooted
GOYFILYMENT TOMACCO ADMINISTRATION,

are at
04 PICCADILLY, W.: 40, KING WILLIAM-STMT. CITY.

BENSON, late HUDSON and Co.,
CIGAR IMPORTERS. UR ONFORDSTREET.
W. RESBON respectfully informs the nobility and gentry that
the above old-established business hr been REMOVED to
••135," where, In tram ardor are reported lobe 'dreamed.

l&s. Oxford4trart:

Vie erPreoo.

TO_ 0011.11E170NDINIL

Ldverthetnente Intended for " The layeem" London Evades
Paper, moat be as the ate, 10, lionvertrotreet, by Two
o'clocJt on the day of pabikatios.

HAYMAIIXT.

Tan Marc), Otife WiaITICAN 6OrsIN. 'Mears. Bothers
and Backstops Misses &aged, Harris, and Soowdon.—And
VENUS AM/ ADONIS. Messrs. Comptes. Fames, sad Coe ;
Mimes Keelm, Snowdoo, N. Moore, Rogers, Bill, sad Wright.

PFNCZEILM

Tio !Minnie, PAtrri irifilliN7 Mews. Vining, Nelson,
PUber: Meedasee Marston and Kale SavUle.—THZ 6OMtDY
OF ERRORS. Wawa VinieL Nelsen, and the heathers Webb.
—And DRAWING-BOOM, 8&OOND FLOOR., AND ATTICS.

LIrCTUIL.

TIII3 ISTEMIO. A DAY lirreallS FAIL 1112.WIddleomb
and Was It. Lavenue.—And DU DiWWIO. Moors. F.
Morton, Broughams. lianku2d, Chula. and Jordan
1118.24 Terri, Lwow*, and sad Mn, Le*

asir~rxu.

TRH Immo. THY LETf.HATIDED MARRIAGE. Mn. S.
Lane and all the Company.—THE GREAT 01106 T EFFECI
—And THE FOUR MOWBRAYS. Master Petcy Roselle.

Will MAT= AT LONDON acmes
TO DAT Manion, Mt 110 m .... Mtwara" S. 40..
TOAKOMIT.. Morning, I. .Afarsoca. eIL

LONDON, TUESDAY, MARCH 29.

A citimiNAL trial, of that peculiar class loved
of novelists, in which the first question is not to
bring home the guilt to an individual, but to dia.
cover whether any crime at all has been com-
mitted, has lately filled the columns of the French
newspapers. In this country we have, in cases
such as those in which the defence lies in sub-
stituting the hypothesis of suicide for that of
murder, or in suggesting that an infant found dead
was never born alive, frequent examples of the
infinite 'ingenuity which can be expended by the
advocates of opposing theories, and of the real
difficulty in which juries often find themselves in
ascertaining the precise significance of the facts.
But in the case at Aix, which has just been con-
cluded, the difficulty was enhanced by the circum-
stance that both the alleged victim and the alleged
criminal were alive, and that by the genius of
French law the diametrically conflicting evidence
of both was admitted.

On the 7th July last Menticz Roux, coach
man in the service of M. ARMAND, a wealthy mer-
chant of lilontpellier, was discovered in the cellar
of his master's house, bound hand and foot, with
a cord round his neck, and in a state of insensi-
bility. The alarm being given, he was removed
to the hospital, restoratives were administered,
but his state was considered so serious that the
last ucraments were administered to him. Soon,
however, he rallied, and in a few days was pro-
nounced perfectly well. There seems to have
been no appearance of blows on His person, except
a trifling mark on the back of the neck, and the
insensibility which, as it seemed real to the medi-
cal men, can scarcely have been wholly feigned,
was attributed to asphyxia caused by the strangu-
lation of the rope. The question then was, how
he came to be in such a situation. His own ac-
count, given on receiving the sacraments, and
steadily persisted in throughout, was that he had
given offence to his master, whom he described
as a man of extreme violence of temper, by call-
ing his house a hovel, and that, incensed by the
insult, M. ARMAND had waited till he saw hini
enter the cellar, had then followed, and after fell-
ing him by a blow on the head, had bound him
and left him to die in the position in which he was
found. On this accusation an indictment of assault
with intent to murder was preferred against M.
ARMAND, but it was subsequently withdrawn, and
the trial proceeded only on a charge of aggravated
assault.

The plea in defence consisted in not merely •
denial of guilt, but in a counter assertion that the
whole circumstances had been brought about by
Rorx's own agency, with the sole purpose of ex-
torting money from M. ARM♦ND, by holding over
him so terrible an accusation. Here it was ob-
viously, first, a question whether a single indivi-
dual could, unassisted, bind himself in an attitude
such as that in which Rorx was found. One of
the surgeons examined solved this problem by per-
forming the feat on himself in open court. And it
seems, from the account of our correspondent, that as,
after any startling suicide by hanging, it often be-
comes • favourite amusement with boys to mimic
the process, the fashionable society of Aix has,
more harmlessly, been infected with the like spirit
of imitation, and that senates for the illustrat,onl
of self-binding have now taken the place of spirit
rapping and other social sensation meetings. The
next question, however, was one of graver science.
It was whether the actual symptoms of injury,
which led professional men to pronounce Rorx
at the point of death, could have been produced
otherwise than by violent attack. The Mont-
pellier faculty seems to have been divided on this
point. But the balance was turned by the evi-
dence of Dr. TAnnter, a high Parisian authority
in medical jurisprudence, who was distinctly of
opinion that much of what had appeared had been
simulated, and that what was real had been
produced by the accuser's own act. Several
of his professional brethren were converted by
Dr. explanation. And certainly it is
not easy for plain common sense to understand
how insensibility could have been produced by a
murderous blow which left no distinct mark, or
how violent strangulation could have been carried
to a point so close to death, while the victim was
as well as ever in a few days after. As to the
character of M. ARMAND, it was proved that,
though of hasty temper, he was of humane and
even amiable disposition, and that he was held in
the highest esteem by numerous friends. Roux,
on the other hand, was of notoriously bad cha-
racter. Moved by such considerations, the jury
brought in, after very short deliberation, a verdict
of not guilty, in spite of a very strenuous charge
by the presiding judge in an opposite sense.
Here, however, ends all resemblance between
the case and anything which could have occurred
in England. For the French law, while it re-
fers criminal questions to • jury, reserves civil
damages to the arbitrament of the judge ; and
Itiirx having brought an action against his late
master for damages for the alleged assault, he was
awarded by the judge 20,000 francs the very day
after the jury had found that no assault had