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Kumara Times, Issue 1143, 28 May 1880, Page 4

An Incident curiously illustrative of French criminal procedure recently occurred at the assizes in the Department of this Oise. A blacksmith named Clabaut was being tried for the murder of a priest ; there was no doubt that he had committed the crime, but the medical evidence as to his sanity was very conflicting. In accordance with the French practice, the Procureur of the Republic rose, after the witnesses had all been examined, to reply upon the whole case; but instead of pressing for a conviction, he told the jury that he felt convinced that the prisoner was not responsible for his actions, and called upon them to acquit him. He went on to.say that though it a was generally accepted theory that the public prosecutfft should endeavor to obtain a conviction, however, assured he might feel of the prisoner's innocence, he could not reconcile it to his conscience to do bo, and added that he would rather throw off his magisterial gown than outrage what he believed to be the truth. The counsel for the defence having followed in the same sense, the presiding, the judge proceeded to sum up ; but instead of placing the two sides of the case before the jury, he declared that, " though the Procureur of the Republic had deserted Lis post, society should not be left defenceless ; and he thereupon proceeded to bring out all the points wuich told against the prisoner, dwelling upon his bad antecedents, and seeking to discredit the evidence of the doctors who had pronounced him insane. He even went so far as to depict to the jury the injury which the prisoner, if acquitted on the score of insanity, might inflict in the asylum to which he would be relegated ; and finally adjured them not to forget "the God of expiation and of justice." The jury returned a verdict of guilty with extenuating circumstances, and Ciabaut was sentenced to penal servitude for life. A Noumea telegram states that two whites and seven natives were capsized in a boat going to the wreck of the Sea Shell. They held on to a buoy all night, when four natives swam ashore and the whites were picked up, but three natives were drowned.