JUSTICE AS A HOUND.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9706, 31 January 1910, Page 4

JUSTICE AS A HOUND.

A certain woman, Madame Steinheil, has been charged in Paris with the murder of her husband and her mother. But'she has beeen acquitted of the charges. She has been hailed as a popular heroine. "What heroic attributes has she exhibited" asks the "Chronicle." "Not virtue, nor fidelity, nor veracity. She was not a good wife nor a wise mother; she was immoral, untruthful, devoured with egotism. But she was comely, she had a bewitching smile, a silvery voice, and a dramatic instinct for posing and speatcing in court. These gifts were enough to,win the great heart of the people. Need we be surprised that the veteran journalist, M. Henri Ruchefort, complains of the omnipotence of woman, particularly an attractive woman, in France?" The world has, however, been scandalised by the way in which the judge treated the prisoner on trial. Appointed to administer the law. he behaved like a hound seeking to find its prey, and lost his selfcontrol when thwarted of it. "In this trial we see the French system

of criminal procedure in its fulness perhaps we might say at its worst," i writes "The Times." "It conflicts with our settled rules. • It shocks our sense of fair play. Everything is topsy-turvy. The judge, who ought to be impartial and to hold aloof from the contest between the prosecutor and the prisoner, or to be, on the whole, the prisoner's friend, is the j true prosecutor, and one invested I with a license which would not be tolerated on the part of a prosecuting : counsel in our courts."