"I have done all I can," said the president to the public prosecutor. "I have made the most of his youth. I have repeated 'only nineteen years of age.' I have indeed done all I can."
"I have done all I can," said the public prosecutor to the president. "I have not said a word about the punishment. I merely accused. I could not plead for the defence. I have done my best."
At the close of the hearing the chief constable was very reassuring to these gentlemen. "He is under twenty and he looked so respectable at the enquiry. It is quite impossible that he should be condemned to death in this quiet village. You will see, he will not be sentenced to capital punishment."
He was not. The jury brought in a verdict of guilty with extenuating circumstances. The magistrates recovered their tranquillity.
M. Lestranger's facts are supported by figures. Those who commit crimes which excite pity, such as infanticide and abortion, are less and less likely to be prosecuted, and if they are, they are frequently let off, however flagrant the offence. The average number of acquittals during the last twelve years is twenty-six per cent. A magistrate nowadays is a St. Francis of Assize.
Either the magistrate does not believe in his own efficiency, or he sacrifices it to his peace of mind, and he cares more for his own peace of mind than for the public safety. The magistracy will soon be no more than a façade, still imposing but not at all alarming.
There is already a very serious symptom of how little confidence the crowd has in the wholesome severities of justice; the criminal caught in the act is often lynched or almost lynched, because it is well known that if he is not punished immediately, he is very likely to escape punishment altogether.
—Yet this same crowd, in the form of a jury, is often, almost always, very indulgent.—True, and that is because between the crime and the assizes there is often an interval of six months. At the date of the crime it is the misfortune of the victim that excites the crowd, at the date of the assize it is the misfortune of the accused. Be this as it may, the practice of lynching amounts to a formal accusation that both magistrates and juries are over indulgent.
The clergy even, who are more tenacious of tradition than any other order in the State, are gradually becoming democratic to this extent, that though by profession teachers of dogmas and mysteries, they now teach only morality. In this way they try to get into closer touch with the poor, and so have a greater hold upon them. Evidently they are not altogether to blame. Only, when they cease to teach dogma and interpret mysteries, they cease to be a learned body or to have the prestige of a learned body. On the other hand they sink to the level of any other philosophy, which teaches and explains morality, and illustrates it by sacred examples just as well as any priesthood. The result is that the people say to themselves "What need have we of priests? Moral philosophers are good enough for us."