Daily inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1881-1901, 1899-08-05
The Government Must Fur
niSh Proof of Guilt.
ONLY FIVE DOCUMENTS
That the Court Martial Can Take Any
Notice 0f--The Prisoner Gives
Reasons Why He Could Not Have
Been Guilty of Being Traitor.

| New York, Aug. 5.-The Paris corres-
pondent of the Tribune, discussing the
questions on which the coming Dreyfus
court martial will hinge, says:
one of the consequences of the judg-
| ment delivered by the court of cessation
, on June has been to shift the burden of
proof from the prisoner to the prosecu-
ton. At the court martial of 1894 it was
incumbent upon Captain Dreyfus to
prove that he was innocent of the charges
brought against him. This was in ac-
! cordance with French law, which places
the burden of proof upon the accused. But
! at the Rennes court martial Captain
! Dreyfus will appear as an officer who ha.
been Illegally condemned and will not
| be obliged to prove his innocence. 1t will
be for the prosecution to prove that he is
guilty.
The issue relegated by the court of cas-
/ satlon to the Rennes court martial for
| trial is narrowed down to the single uues-
ton whether or not Captain Dreyfus
communicated to foreign power the
precse documents enumerated in the
: borderau. The borderau is the memoran-
! dum without date or signature written
! on very peculiar water marked tissue pa
per- which, upon the evidence of the last
trial, was delivered to the German am
bassador at Paris and afterwards formed
! the basis of the original charges against
/ Captain Dreyfus. There is nothing in
! the borderau to show that Captain Drey-
fus had been following reasonable prac-
tlces, or to connect him in any manner
! With it, beyond an alleged similarity be-
tween the handwriting of Dreyfus and
that of the author of the borderau.
| The court of cessation has decided that
| the borderau was written by Esterhazy
and not by Dreyfus. The court Of cassa-
ton mas already passed judgment upon
| all the other evidences adduced against
Dreyfus in 1894, including the confession
| OF guilt alleged to have been made by
| Dreyfus in January, 1895, to Captain lie
Brun-Renaud and to Sergeant de Pert
as we'll as the famous secret dossier. with
its forgeries and criminally manipulated
documents. All that is legally left stand
ing after the elimination by the court of
cessation of the irregularities that as
sisted in the conviction of 1894 is the
Dorderau, which the court of cessation
on June 3 declared was not written by
+ Dreyfus.
The functions of the Rennes court mar
tlal are now limited to hearing evidence
and deciding upon the subject of the al
legged communication by Captain Drey-
fus to foreign power of the documents
, enumerated in the borderau now known
to have been written by Esterhazy as he
himself has confessed. Dreyfus was un-
acquainted with Esterhazy when the bor-
derau was written and it may be safe to
predict that it will be practically impos-
i slble for the prosecution to prove at the
forthcoming trial at Rennes that Cap
tain Dreyfus handed over to a foreign
power the documents in question. These
documents are five in number.
F1rst-A description of the hydraulic
brake of the field gun known in the
French service as the "12O court" and
notes upon the construction of it's car
riage. The "120 court" is the heaviest
gun used by the French field artillery.
Its gun carriage is ingeniously contrived
SO as to travel over ploughed fields and
across country" The projectiles were
formerly loaded with melinite, but dyna-
mite is now used for this purpose and re-
cent experiments made near Mention with
dynamite shells fired from the '12O COURT
guns are said to have pulverzed several
thousand cubic metres of solid rock
SecOnd-A memorandum concerning
the "troupes de couvertur'' (troops in case
of mobilization to be thrown toward the
frontier so as to cover the actual mo-
bilization) with definitions according to
the latest plan.
Third-A note describing the changes
adopted in the artillery formation This
refers to the distribution Of batteries at
the commencement of mobiliza ton
among the divisions of the army corps.
Fourth-A paper on the Madagascar
campaign.
Fifth-A draft Of the manual of field
artillery fire, dated March IA, 1894. In the
report of President lot-Beaurepaire.
the conclusions of which We're adopted by
the court of cessation. a portion of the F.,
record of the court martial Of 1894 is cited !
from which it apepars that on November !
y. 1894, Commandant d'Ormeschville uhe !
officer who framed the Indictment upon |
which Dreyfus was convicted) showed !
Dreyfus the original of the borderau. |
Dreyfus resolutely denied ever having
seen the document before and explained
in detail why it was materially impossi-
BILE that he could have written it. When
questioned about each of the five docu-
ments enumerated in the borderau, the
answers Of Dreyfus We're as follows:
"First-Never at any period of my ca
reer have I had in my possession any
document relating to the hydraulic brake
or the carriage of the 12O court The