The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1899-07-14
A SPECTACLE.


The case of Dreyfus, al this date,
gives to literature the most startling
dramatic event of the last year of the
century. In every aspect the case gilt
tiers with incidents which the inven-
ton of the imagination cannot sur
pass.
There is firstly the barbaric militia
Ty Jurisprudence Of France, which
condemns on concealed evidence, a
proceeding revolving to the common
sense of justice. Then follows the act
of disgracing the convicted man before
the battalions of France, by breaking
his sword before the eyes of his COM
rades, and stripping off the insignia
of his rank, the most conspicuous act
of infamous punishment known to the
army. The condemned man is hurried
over the seas to a desolate island and
consigned to solitary Imprisonment.
There he remains for four years, 4soli-
tary, heart broken, indignant, without
even "a budding hope at midnight"
He knew no more of the world than
If he lived on Jupiter.
But the mills of God are grinding
slowly in France, though he does not
hear them. The gfist is justice. THE
great soul of the world is just. There
is justice here below; at bottom there
is nothing else but justice. "-(Car-
Iyle.)
France fixes her eye upon his case.
Then the nations of Europe follow.
Then the civilized world follows, and
three hundred millions of people in
many lands look at France and watch
her struggling with a great wrong.
The wires running out to every coun-
try declare that political CONFUSION,
which means a deluge of blood, is at
hand He upon whom more eyes are
turned than there were ever turned
upon Napoleon in his supreme days,
sits in his cell in ignorance, and is
consoled by the insects which infeSt
it. The world was in an uproar about
him, but the angry sounds never
reached Devils Island, and he believ-
ed that he was forgotten by all-only
his wife was steadfast and resolute.
Goods mills grind slow, but sure,
The acts of the conspirators were car
Eied by divine law between the upper
and the neither millstones, and justice
caught the stuff as it fell and blew off
the chaff.
ICcfo "a crirn off
forging the bordereau. Col. Henry
killed himself lola startled France
with cry for justice that could not
be suppressed, and then goes into ex-
lie. Picquart was placed in a dungeon
and then released. The anti-Dreyfus
mobs put their hands on the minis OF
God, and tried to arrest their motions
but their fingers were crushed. The
French Chamber went into a frenzy
over the case, and the Cabinet was
defeated. The great Court of Casa
tion was then organized to review the
sentence and confirm the conviction
1t deliberated and not only refused &c
approve, but spoke for review, and de-
clared that the evidence on which the
conviction was made was incompetent
and suspicious. Loubet, a plain man
was the President of the Republic. and
he was not afraid of the army, or the
mob, and he revived the civil power OF
the State.
Following the miserable traditions
of French administration of justice
which holds that an arrested man Is
guilty until he proves himself to be
innocent the door of the cell is open
ed on Devils Island, and the victim OF
four years of torture is taken back
over the seas, but is kept in ignorance
of the angry events which have shall
en- France, and is unconscious thai
the men of all civilizations living or
this terrestrial ball, are waiting fol
his landing in France, and watching
the effect of it upon the most brllilan
and disturbed nation of Europe. Only
when he was once more in cell OF
French soil was the wadding taker
from his ears, and daZed, Respondent
helpless, he heard for the first time
the low thunder of the mills of Coz
which have been grinding out justice
for him during four years The dra
matte situation is intense, becaus
France as we'll as Dreyfus is now OF
trial.