Trial by Jury.—Power of the Jury in France.—Comparative insignificance of that vested in the Judge.—Virtual Abolition of Capital Punishments.—Flemish Anecdote.
Do not be terrified, my dear friend, and fancy that I am going to exchange my idle, ambling pace, and my babil de femme, to join the march of intellect, and indite wisdom. I have no such ambition in my thoughts; and yet I must retail to you part of a conversation with which I have just been favoured by an extremely intelligent friend, on the very manly subject of.... Not political economy;—be tranquil on that point; the same drowsy dread falls upon me when those two portentous words sound in my ears with which they seem to have inspired Coleridge;—not political economy, but trial by jury.
M. V* * *, the gentleman in question, gave me credit, I believe, for considerably more savoir than I really possess, as to the actual and precise manner in which this important constitutional right works in England. My ignorance, however, though it prevented my giving much information, did not prevent my receiving it; and I repeat our conversation for the purpose of telling you in what a very singular manner, according to his account, it appears to work in France.
I must, however, premise that my friend is a stanch Henri-Quintist; which, though I am sure that in his case it would not produce any exaggeration in the statement of facts, may nevertheless be fairly presumed to influence his feelings, and consequently his manner of stating them.
The circumstance which gave rise to this grave discussion was a recent judgment passed here upon a very atrocious case of murder. I am not particularly fond of hanging; nevertheless, I was startled at hearing that this savage and most ferocious slayer of men was condemned to imprisonment and travail forcé, instead of death.
"It is very rarely that any one now suffers the extreme penalty of the law in this country," said M. V* * *, in reply to my remark on this sentence.
"Is it since your last revolution," said I, "that the punishment of death has been commuted for that of imprisonment and labour?"
"No such commutation has taken place as an act of the legislature," he replied: "it rests solely with the jury whether a murderer be guillotined, or only imprisoned."
I fancied that I misunderstood him, and repeated his words,—"With the jury?"