The Express. — 1864-09-09 (London, England)

EXPRESS FROM PARIS.  MURDER BY A FATHER AND TWO SONS.  (11011 OUR OWN oosissrospurr.)  PARIS, Tetra:war Empre.  In certain cases France allows the citizen to take the law into his own bands and cheat the tribunals of the lesser crime to indulge them with an investigation into the greater. A man here, instead of carrying his complaint before Judge Wilde, inflicts punishment according to the force of his passion, and if the wrong-doer dies he takes kis trial for murder, with the conviction that an equitable jury will find in his favour. This system has, 1 presume, been found to work well, for no reform is urged from any quarter. It may be that the check is considered wholesome when a man knows that the breaking of a certain commandment may bring about sharp and speedy vengeance. The absence of • divorce court may also be pleaded in favour of not abolishing this lynch-law. But surely when this justifiable murder is premeditated it should not be tolerated in a land whose laws are supposed to be strong enough to meet all requirements. For two days the assizes of Tarn and Garotne have been occupied with one of these cases, in which a father and his two sons were accused of the murder of a man called Vigid. Vigid had had criminal intercourse with the wife of Bdtolihres, and this man and his two sons laid a plan to catch him en flagrant delit ; they admitted to their confidence the son of the murdered man, who was to watch his father's movements and warn the three assassins when he left his house on his guilty errand. The l34tolieres were at home one evening when they heard a horn sound ; this born was blown by young Vigid, to show that his father had started fur their house. Vigid knocked and was admitted, There was a terrible scuffle, the business was soon over, and one of the eons called out to his mother to come and look at the corpse. The youngest Bdtolieres and Vigies son went and told the authorities what had occurred. Justice went to the spot and found the victim, horribly bruised, lying dead, and betide the body was • wooden shoe, which had been broken on hie skull. The penal code was searched, and it was discovered that Articles 296 and 304 applied. The case was sent for trial, and at the trial the prisoners were defended by M. Jules Fevre, and another advocate less known to fame. Vigies son was charged with complicity. The code may give a man the right of avenging the greatest wrung which can be done to him, but it watild be hard to find an article allowing a man's own son to join in a deliberate plot for his father's assassination. The son is said to have been on bad terms with his father, and so instead of warning him he allowed him to walk to his doom without a word. As an accomplice, he slew his father, because the two were at enmity, whereas the other prisoners assassinated to gratify their vengeance and in strict conformity with the law of the land.  M. Jules Fevre, in concluding his address to the jury, declared that his clieats—" sentenced to the lightest punishment would be unhappy. They were provoked. The aggressor came to search his death upon the theatre of his debaucheries. Their three hearts [those of the prisoners, I presume) are in ray hand ; I give them to you ; they would be broken by a condemnation," &c. Of course there were witnesses to speak to character and a doctor to declare that Vigid was dead.  Attention is drawn to-day to the Danish marriages, especially the alliance in contemplation ; and the manner in which the peace conferences held at Vienna have slackened speed is attributed to King Christian's family compacts. What is passing in the north of Europe is viewed as more and more serious and mysterious. It is asked what these connexions will do for Denmark I England has done nothing as yet, and Rusgia, though long allied to the family of Holstein Gottorp, has never moved in favour of Denmark. She seems sow inclined not to le this power quite alone for fear of the creation of • Scandinavian kingdom capable of meeting her at sea on equal terms, and shutting out St. Petersburg from Europe. It is supposed, then, that this new alliance which she seeks at Copenhagen is one of deep political importance. She would wed, not the