The Sun.
London, England, 1851-09-16 00:00:00

4 treittita -s--2sfillt lt.

LONDON, TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 1851.

The beneficial results of the recent statute, 14 and
15 Vic., cap. 55, are already becoming apparent. The
committals for trial to the Central Criminal Court are
perceptibly diminished, and the persons who are
called upon to discharge the arduous and important
duties of grand or petty jurors at the Old Bailey
will be saved from a considerable portion of inconve-
nience, formerly occasioned,by the protracted attend-
ance required, while the profuse expenditure occa-
sioned will also be materially reduced. The voice of
public opinion had long demanded the salutary change
that has at length been effected, it was further strongly
recommended by persons of practical experience,
whose opinions would necessarily carry with them
considerable weight and authority, and it has been
spoken of in terms of the highest approbation by the
Learned Assistant Judge of the Middlesex Sessions,
and more recently by the Right lion, the RECORDER.
And yet, although there was no doubt or controversy
on the subject, although all persons were unanimous
in their :condemnation of the then system, and cor-
dially concurred in the magnitude of the
existing evils, and the nature of the required
remedies, many years were suffered to. elapse before
the introduction of a suitable measure, its provisions
being of the very simplest character. An additional
illustration was thus afforded of the delays and
difficulties incidental to every improvement in the
administration of the law, no matter how urgently
such improvement may be required.
In his preliminary charge to the grand jury on
opening the September sessions of the Central Criminal
Court, the RECORDER spoke, in terms of unmitigated
satisfaction, of the " unprecedentedly" small number
of prisoners contained in the calendar, when com-
pared with the corresponding periods of former years;
and although he ascribed some portion of the happy
result to the prosperous condition of the people and
the abundant employment afforded to all persons able
and willing to work, a circumstance which leaves
crime of any description without the faintest shadow
of an excuse, he also attributed it in a great degree to
the working of the new law that restores to the Middle-
sex and Westminster sessions their ancient jurisdiction,
for hearing and disposing of all cases triable at quarter-
sessions. They may now try compound felonies,
such as burglaries, stealing in dwelling-houses, lee.'
and we are perfectly satisfied that neither the pri-
soners themselves nor the community in general will
have any cause to regret the extension of powers
conceded to Mr. Sergeant ADAMS ; for, despite some
occasional and very venial eccentricities, that Learned
Gentleman has invariably discharged his arduous
duties conscientiously and efficiently, and held the
scales of justice with an equal and impartial hand.
The RECORDER told the grand jury that " the
consequence of the alteration would be, that the
Central Criminal Court would no longer be over-
loaded with business, and would be relieved from
having to try a number of trivial offences, and
consequently that gentlemen who filled the position
of grand jurors would also find their labours at that
(the Central Criminal) Court very materially dimi-
nished." This diminution, however, is the least
valuable result of the alteration. In say-
ing this we fully and duly appreciate the
convenience of the numerous and influential
class concerned ; but at the same time we feel satis-
fied that they themselves will concur with us in
thinking that the due administration of justice and
the interests of the unfortunate. prisoners committed
for trial is still more important. Neither is it the
saving of expense, although it must be admitted that
the rate-payers have quite :sufficient demands to en-
counter, and that any reduction] of the expenditure
will be received as a welcome boon. No, the most
beneficial effect will be the prevention of the demo-
ralizing influence necessarily at work during the
period when all the prisoners for trial should be
brought into contact without the checks and re-
straints that were previously enforced, when you ng
and comparatively innocent—nay, perhaps the com-
pletely innocent (for let it be remembered that
every person is supposed to be innocent until duly
convicted before a jury of his countrymen)—are asso-
ciated with the most depraved and infamous, and re-
ceive lessons of moral turpitude of the most fatal de-
scription. All attempts at classification are
immediately abandoned, ancka saturnalia is necessarily
suffered to prevail among those awaiting their trials.
The poisonous seed has but too frequently been sown
on such occasions, and many have had to deplore the
ruinous consequences of the protracted sittings, and
the conversations taking place among the parties who
are kept ready to give full occupation to the Court.

There is another point, too, in which the prisoners
were seriously injured, by the numerous post-
ponements of their trials. In the great ma-
jority of cases they are without the means
of paying for the expenses of witnesses, who in turn
are unable to attend gratuitously without some
payment for loss of time and necessary refreshment.
No allowance whatsoever is made for these expenses,
which must fall on the prisoner, whether innocent or
guilty. There are instances where witnesses who
could prove the innocence have attended from a
considerable distance, day after day, until at
length their funds being exhausted, they have
been compelled to withdraw, and the pri-
soner has been deprived of the benefit of their
testimony, and consequently convicted of an offence
of which he was absolutely guiltless. This is indeed
a calamity of no ordinary magnitude, one that may
shake the confidence of. every man in the most
cherished institutions of the land he lives in. It is
far worse than " a failure of jastice," and the escape
of twenty guilty persons. The law becomes not
merely inefficient, but positively mischievous. It
seizes within its meshes those whom it :was in-
tended to protect, and creates the very evil
it was meant to cure. This formidable danger
will be materially diminished, if not altogether re-
moved, under the new system ; and that simple fact, if
it stood alone, and were not supported with other
powerful recommendations, would be quite sufficient
to justify the praises that have been applied to it by
so many persons competent to arrive at a sound con-
clusion on the subject.

The acquittal by a jury of the persons accused by
the French Ministry of being concerned in what was
denominated the Agen conspiracy, induces us to re-
cur to the case of M. ALPHONSE GENT and his compa-
nions, who were convicted by a court-martial of
being concerned in the Lyons conspiracy for
the subversion of the Republic, neither of which
conspiracies ever bad, we verily believe, any
existence, save in the fertile imagination of the
police authorities, who, as all such persons
on the Continent have ever done, seek to
make themselves of importance by pandering to
the prejudices and panic fears of the members of
the Government. We repeat that it is our deliberate
opinion that M. ALpuorisE GENT and his co-accused
have been convicted without the production of ono
scintilla of evidence to prove the crime of which they are
accused. M. ALPHONSE GENT conspired, it is said,
to subvert the Republic, in order to substitute for it—
what ? The Legitimatist Monarchy—the right Divine
of kings to govern wrong ? Throughout the length
and breadth of France there cannot be found an in-
dividual who would even suspect M. ALPHONSE GENT
of any such intention. Perchance he conspired to bring
back the reign of the House of Orleans. Impannel all
France as a jury, and you will have an unanimous
verdict acquitting him of 2ny such inten-
tion. Did be plot to subvert the Re-

public, and to substitute for it a Bonapartist
Imperial regime ? Did he plot to revive the era of
CzcsAns ? A seat in the Cabinet is the reward of
such plotting, not a hut in the Marquesas. M.
ALPHONSE GENT and his companions did not plot
the subversion of the Republic, even according to
the showing of
,their accusers ; the utmost guilt of
M. ALPHONSE GENT and of his co-accused went,
even admitting the truth of the accusations brought
against them, "to this extent, no more ;" they
wished to alter the present Constitution of
the Republic, they wished to revise the Constitution.
If to seek the revision of the Constitution be a crime,
then are the Due DE BROGLIE, M. MOLE, M. LEON
FAUCHER, M. BAROCHE, M. GUI2OT, M. MAGNE,
all the Ministers of the PRESIDENT of the Republic,
upwards of 170 of the Councils-General of France,
and the PRESIDENT of the Republic himself, equally
guilty with M. ALrlioNsa GENT, and all ought
equally to be sent to the Marquesas. But it
would appear from the evidence that M.
ALPHONSE GENT, if he conspired at all,
conspired rather to maintain the Republic, and
we have yet to learn that it is a crime for men to
combine together to uphold obedience to the law.
The details of this trial, however, prove the exist-
ence of conspiracy—of a widely organized conspi-
racy—on the part of those, who have sworn obedi-
ence to the law, to violate their oaths, after the
example of the Emperor of AUSTRIA and the King
of NAPLES, and not only to violate the law them-
selves, but to persecute all those who are
ready and willing to obey and to defend the law.
What is the crime of which those who were recently ar-
rested in Paris were accused ? That they sought to
maintain the Republic and the Constitution, and that,
in order to do so, they consulted together to agree
upon a candidate for the Presidency. Is that a crime ?
We opine not. Nay, further, their candidate, who-
ever he might be, would be the only legal candidate at
present in the field, for the great party of order,
the great party which is always preaching obedience
to the law, has started two illegal candidates,
viz., M. Louis NAPOLEN BONAPARTE and M. DE
JOINVILLE, the election of either of whom will be
a violation of the law, unless the Constitution shall
be previously revised. Now, the friends of M. Louis
NAPOLEON BONAPARTE have been exerting unscru-
pulously all the powers of the Government ; have
organized secret societies, "The Society of the 10th
December," to wit ; have used every means in their
power of openly or secretly influencing the French
electors and the French Assembly, in order to pro-
cure such a revision in the Consitution as shall legalise
his re-election, in order to enable him by such re-
election to, so say his opponents,escamoter la republique.
Now surely it is as great an offence in the Bona-
partists to conspire to procure a revision of the Con-
stitution in one sense, as it is in M. ALPHONSE GENT
and his companions to conspire to procure a revision
in the opposite sense ; therefore it is clear that, even
admitting the accusations brought against M. AL-
PHONSE GENT and his companions to have been proved,
an admission which, however, we do not make, still
he is no more guilty than are his accusers, than are
the men of the reaction of all shades, who are noto-
riously and avowedly plotting for the absolute sub-
version, not the mere modification of the Republic,
and the substitution for it of an Imperialist or a
Royalist regime. We would remind these gen-
tlemen that it is just possible they may not
succeed in their machinations, that it is just possible
that by some future Republican Government they
may themselves be accused of having, in this year
1851, conspired for the subversion of the Republic ;
and we ask them whether they consider they are
acting the part of prudent men, in setting the pre-
cedent of giving jurisdiction to courts-martial in such
cases, and in sending those convicted by such courts-
martial to the Marquesas?

THE FRENCH REPUBLIC.

We have received the Paris journals of yesterday.
The political trials at Agen are over; three of
the persons accused of conspiracy, viz., MM.
LEssErs, DESOLME, and DUFFAU, were acquitted ; and
one M. GAUSSENS, the editor of a republican journal,
was found guilty, with extenuating circumstances,
and sentenced to one year's imprisonment. The
speeches of M.M. CaEmrEux and JULES FAVRE, for
the defence, are spoken of as masterpieces of fo-
rensic eloquence.
The foundation of the new central market of Paris
was yesterday laid by the PRESIDENT of the Repub-
lic. The ceremony was very imposing. The Cure of
St. Eustache and the Prefet of the Seine each pre-
sented addresses to the PRESIDENT, who replied to
them as follows :

" Gentlemen,—lt is now forty years since the idea
was entertained of raising a vast monument to preserve
from the inclemency of the seasons the numerous class of
persons whose painful and daily occupation is to supply
the population of Paris with all that is necessary for its
existence. But, thanks to the enlightened direction
of the Minister of the Interior; thanks to the ener-
getic co-operation of the Manicipal Council of Paris,
and of its worthy Chief; thanks to the decisions of
the National Assembly, the work which I so ardently
desired, is at length accomplished. The construction
of those markets, a real benefit to humanity,
facilitates the supplies of Paris, and invites a greater
number of departments to combine in it. This work,
then, is not merely and solely municipal, for Paris is the
heart of France, and the more active and powerful its life,
the more it is communicated to the rest of the country.
In laying the first stone of an edifice whose destination
is so eminently popular, I confidently cherish the hope
that, with the protection of the Almighty, and the co-
operation of all good citizens, we shall be enabled to lay
in the soil of France foundations whereon to erect a
social edifice sufficiently solid to afford shelter from the
violence and the fickleness of human passions."
The PRESIDENT then proceeded to perform the cere-
mony of laying the foundation-stone amidst enthusi-
astic cries of " Vive ! la Republicque." There was
not the least attempt at any disturbance of the public
peace.
The Five per Cents. opened at 91f. 65c., fell to 91f.
35c., and closed at 91f. 700. ; the Three per Cents.
closed at 55f. 90c.; Orleans Railroad Shares, 867 f. 50o.;
Great Northern, 460 f; Avignon, 205 f.; Vierzon, 430 f.;
Basle, 150 f.; Bordeaux, 385 f.; Paris and Strasburg,
355 f.; Tours and Nantes, 2651. 75c.; Amiens to Bou-
logne 260 f.
B USLNIESS DONE 1N FOREIGN RAILWAYS AT THE
LONDON STOCK EXCHANGE, SEPT. 15.
Boulogne and Amiens, 101/B—Luxembourg, 13/4—Namur
and Liege, 614—Northern of France, 14114—Orleans and
Bordeaux, 4%—Rouen and Havre, 9—Tours and Nantes, 6%.

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