WITHOUT PREJUDICE

Dominion, Volume 18, Issue 194, 12 May 1924, Page 6

WITHOUT PREJUDICE

NOTES AT RANDOM

(By

T.D.H.)

Tlie American Prohibitionists say they intend to make running on a web plank as precarious for politicians as walking on a greasy pole. The stupid English have talked out a Scottish Home Rule Bill- —If they would let the Scots go back to Edinburgh Englishmen might sometimes be able to get the good billets iu London. Italy, according to a cable message this morning, is now starting on its biggest thing in criminal law cases, bigger even than the old Camorra trial of twelve years back. Iu the present case there are 138 prisoners. 50 defend ing counsel, 600 witnesses, and 3000 questions for the jury to answer. It is the unfortunate jury which looks as if it will have the worst of it. In the Camorra trial the hearing lasted from March, 1911, to July, 1912, and the jury had nothing to occupy t’-eir minds with during that sixteen ny, -is except the horrors of the affairs of that extraordinary Neapolitan secret society. They had perforce to abandon even the slightest concern for their private affairs, and the result was that practically all the jurymen were ruined and beggared, with emigration to America as their main hope in life. One day during the endless sittings a member of the jury, exhibited, what was called at the time “a sign of agitation.” It occasioned no remark at the moment, but it later became only too apparent that the juryman had become a hopeiess maniac. Another juryman dropped dead in his seat from exhaustion. The unfortunates were replaced, and on each occasion the whole trial started off from the beginning again.

The trial of the Camorrists was held in an old church at Viterbo, northof Rome, and the iron cage foy the prisoners had only thirty-eight occupants, as against the 138 anarchists now on trial. The prisoners were chained together, and in another cage was a fellow Camorrist who had turned informer and who would probably have been torn limb from limb if put in the same cage as the rest. Six hundred witnesses were heard, and a spare Judge, spare clerk of court, and spare prosecuting counsel were kept on baud throughout. Three Judges were on the bench, but the judicial personnel changed several times through illness or death, and one of the prisoners died, before it was all over, two succumbing in gaol before the trial. The lawyers alone survived the ordeal without casualties. The most persistent orator of the trial was “Master”’ Lioy, counsel for a prisoner named Carmine de Vivo. He spoke for twenty days “without stopping except for meals and sleep.” The Judge listened patiently. Carmino de Vivo did not. “Stop that man’s talk!” he cried, pointing to his lawyer. “We are all dying of misery here. Three of us are already in ths next world.” Furious at the interruption, Master Lioy threw off his robe and abandoned his client. Judge, jurymen, and prisoners were alike; in pauic. A fresh lawyer would have to be got, and the defence begun all over again! Carmine, as affirmed as the rest, hastily effected a reconciliation with the champion orator he had hired.

Numbers of the Camorristu’ prisoners had been in gaol for two or three years awaiting trial, and. as time progressed it became apparent that several of the less important offenders had already endured incarceration for periods exceeding any term fiat could be imposed were they found guilty. The “Tribuna” of Rome ventilated this aspect of the case, and pointed out that such prisoners had not only paid their debt to society, but society actually owed them something in return. The Italian- Government met; the position by an ingenious expedient. Each prisoner got a certificate to say that he had done time—a year, two years, ’ four years, as the case might be—and that this must be deducted from any term he might incu» in future if found, innooent in the Viterbo trial. It was suggested at the time that this convenient arrange-, ment could be adopted generally, throughout the world with advantage. All citizens at twenty, when the stomach is good and time so slight a matter, might do a year or two m goal. For this they would get a receipt from the State. I/atar on m life, when peuitentaries seem uncomfortable to live in and make an inconvenient interruption in busmess, these receipts might prove very useful.

“X” writes asking whether the Bank of New Zealand will present the Dominion Aluseum with a sovereign and a half sovereign to place on exhibition. His fourteen-year-old boy, he says, has never seen gold coins ; and wants to know what they are like.—'Die idea is an excellent one. Very few. children now attending either the primary or secondary schools can have seen gold coins, and the exhibit is one that would attract many visitors to the Museum for old time’s sake. If the banks will advise how many paper pounds it takes to buy a gold sovereign T.D.H. might arrange a public subscription to raise tho necessary amount to purchase one -—provided, of course, it is not considered that such an undertaking would be clashing with the Art GsJlery and War Memorial projects.

It does seem odd when you coma to think about it that Wellington can t raise .£lO,OOO for a War Memorial, but thinks it can manage £lOO,OOO for an Art Gallery. Which is not to say, however, that it doesn’t needl an Art Gallery: quite the reverse, in fact, for if it was educated up .to appreciating an Art Gallery it might begin to feel ashamed of having nothing to remind it of the Wellington boys who went to the war and never came home again.

A Paris paper says the French occupation of the Ruhr is the only thing that has prevented the return .of the Hohenzollerns. —If the French had wished to be nasty to Germany they would, of course, have let the HolienHollerns come back.

At a dinner given by a former Mayor of Portsmouth. His worship during the evening called ut> a waiter and ordered him to “take away these marines.’’ A captain of Marines uho was present at once rose and said; “Your Worship. I wish to protest most emphatically against the application of the term ‘marines’ to empty bottlesThe Mayor replied: “Let me assure you, sir, that no offence was meant, in using the term ‘marines’ it wa» my intention to convey that the bottles had done their duty, nr, and were ready to do it again.” TENERIFFE. Ah. Teneriffe! Retreating Mountain! Purples of Ages pause for you, Sunset reviews her Sapphire Regiment, Dav drops you her red Adieu! Still, clad in your mail of ices. Thigh of granite and thew of steel— Heedless, alike, of pomp or parting, Ah. Teneriffe! Um kneeling still. —Emily Dickinson-