The court therefore ordered the Duke of Anjou to pay all the costs of the trial, and dismissed the case.
Does it not seem absurd for two grown men to quarrel about a title which neither of them has the slightest use for?
On the 1st of January, 1897, a new law went into force, forbidding the convicts in State's prisons to do any other work than hard labor for the benefit of the State.
Up to the time of passing this law, when a prisoner went to jail, the warden found out the work for which he was best suited, and gave him employment of that nature.
A convict who was a good accountant would be put to keeping the books. A shoemaker would be set to mending and working in the shoe-shop. A bricklayer would be put to building and repairing, and so on.
The new law stops this system entirely.
Hard labor means lifting stones, digging, building walls, and work of that kind.
If there are no prison buildings to be made, and no heavy work to be undertaken for the State, the prisoners must remain idle.
To the convicts, idleness is the most cruel punishment that they can be given. They have nothing to interest or amuse them, nothing to think of but their own sad lives; they cannot speak to each other, as talking is absolutely forbidden, so taking their work from them is a very great cruelty.