A Ghastly Experiment.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume IX, Issue 2906, 23 May 1888, Page 3

A Ghastly Experiment.

The French have sometimes a very ghastly way of detecting crime. Two men, named Morand and Vaclier, were charged with the murder of Vetard, a watchmaker, at Joingy, Though a girl named Josephine Martin persists that the accused were the men, and that she herself wrote to Vetard, to appoint a fictitous meetiiiffwith a former sweetheart, in order ttapre him to his doom, Morand and Vaclier firmly denied their guilt, Martin's daughter, but four years of age, was interrogated, and she said she had actually seen the corpse in her mother's room. Impressed by this little witness, the Public Prosecutor decided upon adopting what is known in France as the " recoxistitutionof the crime." Morand and Vaclier wore accordingly taken to the house in the Rue de la Grande Trombe. The shutters were closed, candles were lighted, and a figure representing the murdered man was placed on the bed. Josephine Martin was then introduced with her child, and she proceeded to give her account of the crime, even imitating the gestures of the two prisoners. It is stated/felt Morand and Vaclier underwent xmy terrible ordeal with unmoved features, and, declaring they had not murdered the man, denounced Josephine Martin as the fabricator of an infamous plot, Another plan will now be adopted to, if possible, wring from ILjßkscuscd some admission of their gt™ Technical EducationProfessor Ramsay, in a clear-headed and thoroughly practical article in the current number of Blackwood's Magazine, challenges the whole army ot people who are calling out so energetically and so vaguely for technical education, and knocks their ideas about in a way that will puzzle and perplex a t(ood many souls who have been talked into 'lie conviction that England is j losing all her foreign trade, and that | the only way to meet the ruin which stares us in the face is to set up some sorts of technical schools and to prepare boys fur sonic handicraft or mechanical occupation. It is by superior kuowledge it ia said, by early and systematic education in the printhe processes of the industry at, vlnrait works, that the foreign workmanWgradually but surely taking the bread out of the mouth of the British workman, and Professor liaiusay in this article in Blackwood very vigorously takea (lie people who are using this language to task. What is technical education ! And who are the people who are demanding it? This cry for a revolution in-Mie subjects of our education has not come, as a rule, from pure men of science; nor has the demand for technical education to any considerable extent been made by the tji'eab employers of labour. On the contrary in great corainmcial cities nothing is more remarkable than the scepticism or indifference as to the value of technical education which is exhibited by the captains of our industry. If tho opinion of any able practical man at the head of a large works were asked on tho subject the invariable replug "Weillshould like to know wlwr they mean by technical education j" and he will probably add that the present' cry for it is being much overdone, and may lead off the nation in an entirely wrong direction,. That, as we know, is emphatically the case iififeeeds and the West Ridin» generafy/and so far we have had no practical and satisfactory answer to tho Cfitjqsm,