The Sun.
London, England, 1864-08-08 00:00:00

LONDON, MONDAY, AUGUST 8, 1864.

Ths extraordinary Trial which was brought at
Paris on Saturday to so extraordinary a conclusion
may at length be very reasonably commented upon,
even here in England, now that it has been brought,
as a trial, to any conclusion at all. Different, often
diametrically opposite, though the institutions of
the two countries unquestionably are, it becomes a
matter of duty among the publicists of each, respec-
tively, to comment upon the bearing of those insti-
tutions, upon their bearing not only directly on the
social condition of things in the land to which
they (the institutions referred to) belong, but indi-
rectly also upon, if not the social condition, at any
rate the guidance or development of public
opinion among the neighbouring population.
Any disquisition upon the YELVERTON case, for
example, would be perfectly en regle, if indulged in
by anyone among our Parisian contemporaries.
Comment upon that extraordinary trial might,
not only very allowably but very judiciously,
be penned to almost any extent by auy individual,
among the band of French journalists. Any-
thing that seriously affects the social or political
order of things in France, in the same way, upon the

same principle identically, comes legitimately within
reach, not only of the scrutiny, but of the searching
criticism as well, of the journalism of England. Of
the working of the institutions:of France, we may be
permitted to take our view, here in England, quite
as reasonably as Frenchmen themselves. And vice
versa might be said of the latter in regard to their
capacity and right to judge of the working of ours
—that is, of the working of our institutions.
Having peemised;all which, let us say at once, in re-
ference to this remarkable trial which has but
just now come to so very remarkable a conclu-
sion among our Parisian neighbours, that it
strikes us, in itself and in its result, as at once
painful add ludicrous. The charge directed against
the accused in this trial is, we would maintain,
little less than ludicrous in itself, amounting as it
does to something nearly equivalent to a formal
declaration in a court of law, that two-and-two
make not four as people have hitherto supposed,
but same half-a-dozen or thereabouts. Thirteen
persons, in point of fact, have been f0r-
m51127, deliberately, and authoritatively charged
with the high crime and misdemeanour
of forming an illegal association of Twenty.
It seems ridiculous, on our part, seriously to assert
as mach—yet such, to all intents and purposes, was
absolutely the bearing of the accusations brought
against MM. GARNIER PAGES, CARNOT, and DREO,
with their ten associates. For, seriously to put the
matter at issue in the plainest possible terms, such
was literally, such was no more and no less than
the drift of the whole charge directed against them.
Thirteen were not thirteen, but a score. Two and
two, in edam, as be ore intimated, were pronounced
to be no longer four, but some elastic half-dozen or
thereabouts. Not only has this, and this precisely,
been the accusation directed against rid. n
_ARNIER
PAGES and his dozen colleaguea or associates, bat
this, and precisely this, was the decision eventually
arrived at, as the result of this astounding trial at
Paris on Saturday. The astonishing consequences
being that the &cc:used have been sentenced to be
rnu!eted in 5,000 francs each,
together with costs,
for having cenetnuted themselves, to the number of
thirteen, an electoral meeting of twenty—this
preposterous sentence having been pronounced
in
de-
fiance of all the rules of arithmetic, to say nothing
et, the laws and equity in any country upon
the surface of the globe—and pronounced, let it be
borne in mind, not bj tTie one-eyed philosnphera
of the Plying Island, but by the sixth Chamber
of the Correctional 'Tribunal of the Seine!

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The Mlle of BEAUFORT has not minecd matters
in his remarks about the position of affairs and the
state of parties. lc is really a relief cocasionally to
meet with an address of this sort, for it seems to