Los Angeles herald., 1910-02-07
FRENCH JUDGES
CURBED BY Y.LAW
COURT OF ASSiZES PROCEED
URE MODIFIED
Separation of Church and State and
Close of Government Annui=
ties Is Hardship for
Priests

| PARIS, Feb. 6.-The text of the bill
modifying the procedure in the court
| of assizes approved by the council of
ministers has been published This
| bill, which was largely inspired by the
agitation of public opinion which re-
suited from the Steinheil case, is prin-
cipally directed toward the assertion
of the position of the judge as an i'm
partial arbiter and not as q supporter
of the prosecution-an attitude which
he was bound to take from time to
time in the interrogation of the pris-
oner before the calling of witnesses.
The preamble of the bill does full
justice to the impartiality of the mag
istrates, and it is urged that it must
not be regarded as a manifestation Of
distrust toward them, any more than
as an attempt to disarm society against
criminals. The interrogation of the
prisoner by the judge is suppressed,
though after the first witness has been
called he will be able to ask such ques-
tions as he may think with regard to
the depositions made.
Other Changes Made
The "acte d'accusation, which broke
down so completely in the Steinhei!
case, also will be abolished, and the
''arret de. renvoi' will take the place
of the formal indictment. The public
prosecutor will then explain the case
to the jury, a procedure which fell into
disuse owing to the predominant i'm
portance of the judges interrogation.
Further regulations are made as to
the hearing of witnesses.
After the separation of the churches
from the state it was provided that
in order to prevent the suspension Of
public worship in any parish and in
order to mitigate the severity of the
separation for the clergy, those priests
who were over as years of age and had
seen twenty years service should re-
ceive "a pension for life equal to half
of their actual emoluments at the date
of the separation. The younger clergy
received an annuity for four years
from the beginning of the year 1906,
with $780, and diminishing year by
year until it amounted to only $50 in
the year 1909, at the close of which the
annuity expired.
AT the beginning of the present year
the Roman Catholic church in France
finds a large section of its clergy,
whose income from the state already
had been reduced to the vanishing
point, entirely deprived of support from
that quarter. Taking the basis of last
years annuity alone, it appears that
the total income of which the French
Catholic church is thus deprived is
some $1,000, 600.
Church to Rescue
Already during the process of the
diminution of the state annuities the
church, in order to maintain public
worship and to meet all incidental eX-
penses, had organized a system of vol
untary contributions in each parish,
which are known as the denier du
cutie. Both the church and the state
are reticent about this organization
the church because it knows that,
strictly speaking, the organization is
probably Illegal and the state because
its information about an apparently il
legal organization, at which it conniVeS,
is necessarily imperfect.
When the state at the time of the
separation offered the church the expe-
dent of organizing associations des
cultes, which the church, by the de-
cision of the pope, rejected, it took care
to enact that If the church did not elect
to secure it's former revenues by this
method it should not be allowed to es-
tablish any other form of association
which the law did not recognize. The
connivance of the state at the present
arrangement is facilitated by the form
which the church has given to the or
ganization of the denier du cutie. The
money is contributed by an informal
parochial association through the priest
to the bishop of the diocese. Both the
local association and the diocesan COM
mittee of management over which the