The Sun.
London, England, 1864-11-09 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF T

TIMES.—The reception of M NI. Berryer and Des
merest by the Bar of England yesterday evening
was a brilliant success, it' the success of such hospi-
tality is to be measured either by the numbers and
dignity of the company, or by the hearty cordiality
of the welcome. Never, perhaps, was the ancient
hall of the Middle Temple the scene of a more im-
pressive spectacle, and never certainly was there
such a muster of the English Bench and Bar to do
honour to a distinguished foreigner. The object of
all this admiration has no more connection with this
country than any other eminent Frenchman, and
owes his great popularity among us entirely to his
own personal merit. He is not merely a successful
French advocate; he is a man who, through evil re-
port and good report, has maintained his professional
and political integrity equally untarnished for more
than half a century. Such a career must ever and
everywhere be rare. The combination of ability,
industry, physical strength and good fortune, which
can alone enable a man to win and retain the lead
of the legal profession, is given to very few, and
fewer still are found to unite these qualities with
aptitude for the duties of the Senate. Oar own
Erskine, to whom Lord Brougham happily compared
M. Berryer, was quite as much his inferior in a
deliberative assembly as he was probably his su-
perior in forensic skill. Lord Brougham himself
gained a higher reputation in the House of Coma
mom than any lawyer of modern times, but even
Lord Brougham's powers and patriotism were not
tested by so long and various an experience as M.
Berryer'e. When the English barrister attains a
certain position, he is almost sure to be trans,
ferred to the Bench or the Woolsack; but in
France the Bar owns nothing superior to itself.
It would be an insult to offer M. Berryer a
judgeship, and at an age when most men are
unequal even to judicial labours he continues to
practise as an advocate. To say, then, that he is the
most illustrious advocate in Europe is not to dispa-
rage the great ornaments of our own Bar, for there
is scarcely one of them, past or present, whose pro-
fessional life has extended over the same period of
time. It was natural that on such an occasion, and
in such an assembly, the independence of the Bar
should be the favourite theme of all the speakers.
No one touched this subject more forcibly than
Mr. Gladstone, who testified that the privileges
of this order were the one safeguard of liberty
which the despotic Government of Naples was
compelled to respect. It is difficult for Eng-
lishmen, or at least for our own generation of
Englishmen, to appreciate the importance attached
in evil times to freedom of speech in courts of
justice. To us the functions of counsel in check-
ing arbitrary power appear so entirely subordi-
nate to those of Parliament and the Press, that we
are at a loss to realise a state of things in which
popular rights should be in the sole keeping of law-
yers. We need not look far backwards or around us
for a corrective of these notions. The history of our
own country during the reign of George 111,, and
the history of France during the whole of M. Bar.
ryer's lifetime, is enough to show that where Par-
liaments are composed of placeholders and the Press
is under official control, the Bar is the one perma-
nent force capable of offering an effective resistance
to the prerogative. The Attorney-General wisely
coupled these three institutions together, but M.
Berryer expressed his regret last night, as he
has so often expressed it before French tribunals,
that only the last flourishes in his own
country. In his famous defence of Count Mon ta-
lembert the same sentiment recurs again and again,
and we alternately wonder at the intolerance of
opinion manifested in the very fact of the prose-
cution and the latitude of political comment allowed
in the defence. The truth is that the habits and
traditions of a great and united profession are more
stubborn opponents than the aspirations of a people.
It is often easier to overawe insurgent multitudes
than a compact body of lawyers, who depend on the
confidence of the public, and cannot be set at de-
fiance without avowing principles destructive to
society. There is another sentiment, however,
which found expression last night in the welcome
accorded to the acknowledged leader and the
elected batonnier of the French bar. It was the
conviction that more intimate relations ought to
exist between French and English jurists. Con-
sidering how much we have to learn from foreign
systems of law, it is marvellous how little we study
them, and how few of the great French works on
jurisprudence have been translated in our language.
Something has been done by the legal department
of the Social Science Association in bringing mem-
bers of the two Bars together, and if we remember
right, M. Desmareat, who says that a closer inter•
course between the two has always been with him a
cherished idea, personally took part in one of these
meetings. It is gratifying to know, on his autho-
rity, that the invitation from the English Bar to
himself was accepted by his brethren in the spirit
which prompted it —as a compliment to their order
and as an earnest of future communication, Tnia
kind of alliance has long subsisted between men of
science, and, in a less degree, between literary
men, belonging to different nations. Free trade
has enormously developed the community of inte-
rest which must always be felt by merchants all
over the world. Why should not a corresponding
exchange of ideas take place between the learned
professions in England and France P National
prejudices, if they are ever reasonable, are as-
suredly out of place here, for civilisation is the
property of no race or country. It is morally cer-
tain that the policy of isolation, borrowed from times
whoa hostility was the normal attitude of nations
towards each other, has maternally retarded the pro-
gress of arts and inventions. Even now the methods
of French education are known to very few of our
educationists, and the confessed superiority of their
mathematical textbooks, for instance, has not yet led
to a thorough reform of our own. It is time that
these barriers of thought should be broken down so
far as possible, and we could not begin with a more
profitable subject for mutual improvement than law.
The points of contrast are infinite in number, and,
without any disrespect to our own system, we may
safely say that they are not all of them in our own
favour. If the visit of I\l.. Berryer and his colleague
should prove the beginning of such a rapprochement,
it will be no unworthy supplement to the Commer-
cial Treaty.
PosT.—The German Legal Protection Society
have, it is said, agreed upon the terms of a memorial
praying for a respite for Franz Muller, which is to
be presented to the Home Secretary to-day. They
have also published a statement purporting to give
the result of their investigations in reference to this
case, But it does not appear to have occurred to
these gentlemen that it was practically by their
own choice that Muller'e, trial took place when it
did. There can be no douht that the Crown would
have assented to the postponement of the trial, and,
if further time was required to prepare the defence,
it was the bounden duty of the prisoner's advisers to
have applied to the Court in the usual manner, on
affidavits, for its postponement. We believe we are
correct in saying that such an application was ex.,
pected, and the German Legal Protection Society
best know why it was not made. They must be
aware that an explanation has been already indi-
rectly offered. It has been suggested that had the
hearing been adjourned the strong case for the pro-
secution might have been strengthened by the pro-
duction of witnesses from amongst the passengers
who accompanied Muller to America. Be this, how-
ever, as it may, there is no getting rid of the fact
that by going to trial they virtually declared that
they had done all that could be done for the pri-
soner, and the wretched attempt to establish an alibi
confirmed this impression. Of course they were to
some extent guided by their solicitor, and ho no
doubt acted under the advice of counsel. But that
only makes the conduct they are now pursuing the
more extraordinary and indefensible. It would ap•
pear that they are not satisfied with the counsel
they retained. They complain that his cross-exami-
nation of the witnesses for the prosecution was not as
effective as it might have been, and that he did not
call witnesses for the defence whose evidence they
desired to have taken. it is easy to find fault after
the event, but the truth is, we apprehend, that the
counsel felt he had no case; and if the statements
now published were briefed to him, it is not diffi-
cult to understand the opinion ho formed of them.
Still, the trial might have been postponed, and the
arrangements for the defence could then have been
changed, if that was thought desirable. But to
publish what purports to be a defence of Muller,
after his trial and conviction, and when the alleges
tions it contains cannot he tested by cross-exami-
nation, manifests an intention to interfere with the
administration of justice which we regret to have
to notice. Dismissing what can only be described
as the sensational portion of this statement with
the single observation that its publication is, under
the circumstances, almost offensive, the story that is
told about the hat, which was proved beyond all
reasonable doubt to have been made for Mr Briggs,
and cut down to remove his name, is not only ina
consistent with the evidence for the prosecution, but
totaliy at variacce with the theory of the defence,
which was that Muller bought this hat in the
second-hand trade. A number of old hats were
produced to support the supposition, and now it is
affirmed that the hat in question was purchased at
the shop of the maker. But there is no explana-
tion of the cutting down, and it was certainly not
bought at the shop of a first class hatter, and at the
price stated, in the condition in which it was found
in the possession of Muller. With regard to the
watch and chain, it is pretended that Muller bought
them of a pedlar at the docks on the morning of
the Monday after the murder; that he exchanged
the chain within two hours after its purchase; and
that he made the bargain with the pedlar thinking
, that he might realise A profit upon the articles, and