The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-01-12
WHERE CRIME RUNS RIOT
AATAzING LAWLEssNEss IN THE GAY
 FRENCH CAPITAL.

voked by Parlsinn Editor's Jeers at the Windy City-Astonishing Disregard of Life and Property-where Epigrams Win AcquittaI.
 Paris, Dec. 2S.--To any one with bent toward the law there could be no more interesting field for study than the codes under republican France. The peculiarities even begin with the con- stitution. They are not hoary laws, full of the anomalies and inconsistent c.es of long descent, like those of Eng land, for instance but brand-new laws made for a progressive and up-to-date the universe" and the greatest civil izer the world has ever seen."
 \ The laws themselves may be Of ln- terest only to legal minds; it is their working which aords to the ordinary Anglo Saxon intelligence one of the most startling exhibitions of justice, or attempts at justice. this century has witnessed among an intelligent peo- pie. In France the average person pays scant attention to these matters; he shrugs his shoulders; he Is not in volved; doubtless things will be strengthened out some time, if they are < not right now. He prefers to believe that they are right now, because, for one thing, that belief is less troublez some than another might be. The thinkers of France, however, are more concerned as the voluminous litera- ture on the subject of crimlnology ! proves.
 As regards all French laws, but par Y ticularly the criminal law, 1t is per haps only just to say that the country is in a transition state. Probably the authors of the penal code and its sup plements are really sincere in their ef- forts to learn, through experience, ex- actly what is best, not only in the pun ishment of crime, but in it's prevention. At the same time it would seem, per haps to almost any one but Latin, that they have put the country to se- rious risk of danger at the hands of the criminal classes while gaining this experience. Speaking broadly, under the present code and the law passed in < 1891, commonly known as the Beranger < law, Frenchman may rob and murder B almost at will. If the jury does not look out for his welfare, he has any number of tender laws of mercy at his disposal; failing all else, the president of the republic is there with his par doning or committing power.
 There is in France very strong sen- timent against capital punishment. The advocates of it's abolition say that criminals are not deterred by the fear of death. They point to the fact that .1Jl~I sx,T to1x s,,T Tyn,>t,1 gal, and in most of the cantons of Switzerland Their constant agitation of the question has resulted in it's prac- tical abolishment in France also as there has not been an execution, aside from military executions, since that Of Emile Henry, the anarchist bomb ! thrower, in 1894 Tn the three years since then there have been nearly six hundred murders, but all the culprits have escaped the death penalty. In the army, on the other hand, and in Algeria. there have been many akecu- tions. The military executions were, without exception, those of soldiers sem fenced to death for striking an officer.
 Six hundred murders, without one sentence to death, will doubtless strike most people, out of France, as incredi- t., | Va the murderers were really convicted and sentenced, but that the president intervened. A case of this kind is upon the Paris court records for this month. IA man murdered his wife under cir cumstances nconceivably brutal, be- cause he had seen her speak to another man on the street. When she got home he tortured her for three hours, then was another two hours killing her. He broke every bone in her body, as well as her skull, and when she was found 1t was impossible to tell that she had once been human. Even a French jury was revolted But the president said that the murderer was clearly entitled to clemency, because he had been nov ed by jealousy. The newspapers ap- < plauded the president
 This case is cited not because 1t is in- I1erently remarkable in the way of French murders, but because the French say that capital punishment Is brutal ity worthy only of barbarous peoples; that it's inf1iction is without the pale of civilization. Notwithstanding the records of ther revolutions and of thei, commune they set themselves up as be- ing a hyper-human people, -humaner than any nation the world has ever seen. Lynchings in America are stock subjects for the Paris newspapers. One paper refers to us habitually when dis cussing these matters, as ''the hog stick ing and garroting Yankees" Another occupies much space with boxing and prize-flghting in England and America usually defining such sports as Ire volting beyond expression to any na- tionality even half civilized" A few days ago another paper got this off:
 ''The practice of electrocution (sic) in America, which is the official way ot carrying out the death sentence through. out the states, is one that cannot be toe severely reprimanded. It is only tc such people as the gross, sordid, un- feeling Yankees, who have not yet had the benefits of even minor culture, that such barbarity can seem other than the height of brutality"
 Finally, the six days bicycle race al Madison Square Garden was the sigma for a concerted attack against America and Americans such as probably no na- ton has been subjected to at the hands of another, unless it be the Germans attacked by the same great "civilizine force" Putting out of consideration the chagrin of the French at finding theil own riders beaten in the race, the exhi. 1~s+ lStI ol,.Il ;zl.