The times., 1899-08-20
THE GOSSIP OF LONDON.
France ON Trial Before the Civilized
World.

London. Aug. 19.-"Shall France be boy
cotted and sent to Coventry" This has
actually been topic of discussion this
but among serious politicians and Journal
lists in England, and. less generally, on
the Continent. too The question has a
very practical bearing, for IL any sub
stantial section of the outside public
should decide to boycott France IN the
eve of her great Paris Exposition, the
effect would hardly be negative one.
Even quiet-minded Englishmen, as they
read their mornings news from Rennes,
can find but one explanation. and it is this,
! that France has gone mad, as she went
mad in the revolution days hundred years
ago. But, whereas her madness then was
the sequel of cruel sufferings and pent-up
longings for justice, liberty, and equality,
it is now her frenzied contempt of these
very qualities that has brought her 10
delirium.
The charge against Dreyfus. ii must be
remembered, was simply this, that he sold
to a foreign power documents mentioned
in the bordereau. betraying his country.
After five years of torture so devilish that
even a cold callouS court-martiai is moved
by the bare official recital of 1t, Dreyfus is
declared by the highest. judicial court in
France to be innocent of the charge; yet
for five days this week. from 8 O'Clock in
the morning till Eoon, general after gen
eral has been allowed to pour out foul
invectives against Dreyfus. based on no
title of evidence, but on the vague as
sumption of his guilt. They have been al
lowed, too to give the lie to foreign Gov
ernment after Government that has denied
their anti-Dreyfus canards.
At the very crisis of his defence. the
leading Dreyfus advocate is struck down
by an assassin. There are strong suspi-
cions that the assassin is no ordinary GRIM
inal fighting for his own hand. Not only
does the court not adjourn, but the public
watches the assassin make his escape and
the ever-vigilant French police still pre-
tend to be looking for him.
Meanwhile, in Paris you see crowned
with a certain success the puerile maneu-
vres against the Republic of the fanatic
Drumont, the witless Deroulede, and the
stupendous siege against all France of the
house of the pork butcher Guerin & ind Of
public opinion that should correct these
excesses of folly there is none to speak of
Can one wonder that sane men say France
has lost her senses, and admit that in
such a land revolution or any other form
OF upheaval may come at any moment?
An eminent French authority declared
only the other day: Despite the m2cnlna-
tons of Drumont and the Jew baitsrs, de-
spite the attempts of the Bourbon pre-
tenders to make French generals forget
their allegiance, France is firmly welded
to the republican ideal, and if ever man
with the white flag attempts to ride to the
Elysee there will h; still ten thousand
pairs of republican hands to strangle him
and save the country
No doubt royalism is the last fear of the
friends CT France. but there are perils
even nearer home when once nation loses
its sense OF justice between man and man.
Every one recalls how great an incentive
to revolutionary excesses was given in
France one hundred years ago By the ac-
ton of foreign powers. Remembering this,
there may prove to be something ominous
in the simultaneity with which foreign
Governments seem to be making their
voices heard at this moment Of internal
crisis. The "Kolnische Zeitung" for in
stance, publishes a statement which comes
here as evidently inspired" protesting
against the manner in which the French
generals ignore the crushing proof con-
tained IN the declaration of Count Won
Buelow. the German Imperial Secretary of
State; also the word CT honor of the Prus-
sian Colonel Schwartzkoppen, and the
statement of the Italian Ambassador,
Count Tornelli, according to which Colonel
Sehwartzkoppen had stated that Esterhazy
gave him the documents enumerated in
ho