VERA GELO'S TRIAL.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXII, Issue 129, 1 June 1901, Page 5 (Supplement)

VERA GELO'S TRIAL.

A SCENE OF SICKLY SENTIMENT

ALISM.

(From Our Special Correspondent.)

LONDON, April 23.

No greater contrast to English methods cf administering justice could well be found than In that cause celebre just concluded in Paris, the trial of Vera Gelo, to which "le tout Paris" flocked in its smartest spring toilettes to behold the haVrowlng of the neurotic Russian medical student. The facts were simple and devoid of any mystery save that which the accused chose to import to them by a tale of a supposed outrage at Geneva. At the university of that town Vera, who is just 20, was studying medicine, and her bosom friend, Alexandrine Zelenine, literature.

In June, 1900, according to Vera, some man grossly insulted her in Geneva either by attacking her virtue or by Inflicting, on behalf of the Nihilists, a degrading punishment upon her. Vera determined to wipe out the stain on her honour by the death of her assailant. In December, 1900, the two friends went to Paris, where Vera had resolved to give up medicine and to study instead philosophy .and literature with her companion. But the day after their urrival Vera told her friend that she had met her insulter near the Madeleine. A second time she.met him near the Sorbonne, and thenceforward revenge became her sole thought. Wherever she went she carried one revolver In her muff, and another in her pocket, determined to shoot down the mysterious villain 'like a mad dog."

On 19th January Vera and Alexandrine went to a literature lecture at the College de France given by M, Einlle Deschanel, the respected father of the President of the Chamber of Deputies. Vera jumped to the conclusion that in the professor she saw her insulter, and forthwith went into hysterics and retired Into the porch of the college. When at the close of the lecture M. Deschiinel came out, Vera rushed at him, revolver in hand. Alexandrine Interposed,and In attempting to hold up Vera's arm received herself the bullet intended for M. Deschanel. Alexandrine, after lingering In agony for some time, died, and Vera discovered too late that she had made a fatal mistake, and that M. Deschanel was not the man who had insulted her.

With these facts before an English court Vera's conviction would have been a foregone conclusion. She would have been Indicted for the murder of her friend,for English law, with characteristic common sense, holds that If you attempt to murder A. and In shooting at him kill your dearest^ friend 8., you are nevertheless guilty of B.s murder. The sole question for Investigation would have been Vera's sanity,and it would have been held that if she was sane enough to know that she was doing wrong In killing her itisulter she was responsible for her action. She would doubtless have been convicted of murder and her sentence commuted. But in France, the country of sentiment, Vera was tried not for shooting the friend, whom she killed, but for attempting to shoot at M. Deschanel. The indictment set out not only the facts of the crime, but the whole history mid career of the accused. TheD the presiding judge began that inquisitorial Interrogatory of the prisoner which Is so repugnant to English notions of justice. Small wonder that Vera, who Is described as an emotional Slav, with girlish features, large dark eyes, and slight figure garbed all in black, became deadly pale, burst from time to time into sobs and tears, hid her face In her handkerchief, and showed signs of swooning away as she was pitilessly questioned on all the events of her life.

But when the judge came to the outrage ttsell' he could get no details of the Insult, much to the disappointment of the nastyminded folks who had been smacking their lips In anticipation of some sensational sensualism. Vera would not say more than this, thnt the outrage took place in Geneva In June, and that her insulter, who was elderly but alert, had one short finger on the left hand, without joints, as in the case of poisons affected by gout. M. Deschanel lacked this distinguishing mark. The judge pressed her to give some indication of the nature of the outrage, and offered to hear her In camera; but she remained mute, and the judge got little more from her than the following sample of the interrogatory reveals: — "How was it that you remained three hours with a man I do not know what construction to put on thnt. There is also an anonymous letter In the dossier, In which it Is stated that the. Nihilists inflicted a humiliating punishment on you. A person must have gone to your lodgings. Can you tell us how you came to find yourself with that person? Vera Gelo: I can say nothing whatever. The Judge: Do you persist iv saying that the outrage took place in the month of June? Vera Gelo: Yes. At Geneva?— Yes, and before returning to the landlady's I allowed several hours to pans so that my trouble should not be noticed. The Judge: Then the affair happened out of a house? That Is another point gained. M. Deschauel gave a clear account of the fatal occurrence, explaining that he heard a shot tired and was pushed back towards the lecture hall, never realising until after he had returned home that a woman had intended to flre at himself and shot her companion Instead. On the very day on which the outrage was alleged to have occurred he was In the French Senate. Nevertheless the Dreyfusards and their journals have continued to attack the Professor as the perpetrator of the outrage, hinting that when he sent flowers to the dying girl it was to purchase her silence. At the close of his evidence M. Deschanel said: "I wish to pay a last tribute to the memory of the v'etini of this deplorable event, and to assure her unhappy family of my deep gratitude." Here one of those scenes so dear to the French heart occurred, Vera bursting into heart-rending sobs,raised her clasped hands and cried, "Forgive me! Forgive me!' '"You have heard M. Deschanel. What do you say, Vera Gelo?" asked the judge. The girl sobbed out, "I made a mistake, 1 did, gentlemen. Oh, pardon me!"

After the adjournment, when a crowd attempted to rush the Court and the Municipal Guards had to be called in to restore order, the judge read tile dead girl's deposition, in the course of which she said that Vera, who had never spoken to her of the outrage, was not mad, but subject to fixed and extravagant ideas as to outrage. Mdlle. Zelcuimi's brother, after expressing his own and his sister's forgiveness, decribed Jfera as moody and morbid, and said she had once told him that vengeance was one of the sweetest of passions. After the bullet nad beeu shown to Vera, the doctors described her as a neuropath, highly strung, nervous and excitable, liable to hallucinations and hysteria, and only partially responsible for her actions, and expressed their opfsion that the supposed insult was but the creation of a morbid imagination.

The jury only took a quarter of an hour to consider their verdict, which was, as everyone expected, an acquittal, on the declaration of which Vera Gelo smiled faintly and swooned away.