THE OUTRAGE ON JUSTICE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2390, 21 December 1899, Page 48

THE OUTRAGE ON JUSTICE.

By a Banker.

The gruesome tragedy which has recently been perpetrated in France, by which an innocent man has been maliciotisly and wickedly condemned by his perjured judges, in the face of the dearest ci idence that -ho -was not guilty of the alleged crime, the iniquitous verdict being accepted with cynical equanimity, or even with nn- acclaim of exnltntion liy that discredited iwlton, has aroused throughout the civilised world a sucldca outburst of loudly expressed angry indignation and wrath, such as the worlcl has telciom witnessed, and which the t.udy leparation xnuiio by the Government has failed to appease.

For yeais pas; the heart oi Christendom has baeii thiobbmg with pity for this maltreated victim of French vituperation and venomous iiiumosity. From the first mock trial all through the disreputable stages of the perseculicn; the placing of a revolver at his side in oider to temnt him to commit suicide; the :iv. ful and revolting horrors of his captivity, walled up ia a foul courtyard a few feet square, with but a wi etched hut at one cud in which to sleep, ou an lsJiincl in the tropics, the very name of which suggests only lurid despair; tha systematic oppressions and molestations to which he wae maliciously subjected in order to compass his death m any way short of actual violeice; until the last hideous travesty of justice, at which the evidence which would have abso'utHy confirmed that innocence, in which eve r y sane man in liuiopc believed, was contemptuously rejected; — through all this tho astonished and outraged coascience of civilisation has looked on with perturbation and dismay, amazed and stunned that a nation onca so great should have sunk so low, and should have reverted to such a state of utter savagery.

But from time to time the world has witnessed these outbursts of savagery in France. On St. Bartholomew's day, 70,000* of the best blood of thr country, the noble Protestant martyrs, were out to death in cold blood, and hundieds of tiioacands were persecuted with rancorous hate, tortured with demoniacal ferocity, robbed of all they possessed, and harassed with the ino.-t malignant barbaritj and rapacity which the powers of evil could invent.

And tlle.li the lust for blood and lapiue broke out again at trie Jlovoiuuon, when France "was given over io an orgip of murder, and blood ran like water throughout the land. And yet o^ain duriny tho Co:niminc the ssine lawless spa-it cf ph;_iic>-, and murder, and luin broke out afresh.

But all this, excepting, however, the massacre of the Protestants, was caused by a sudden outbreak 01 passion, whereas this laßt persecution of the poor fated Dreyfus is a deliberate and of set purpose calmly designed subversion of jii&lice.

Happily, however, for the honour of our race, not ai! France joins in this acclaim of approval of iniquity; may those who have not bowed the knee to this national abandonment of tho high principles of justice and of right make their voice heard in loud and indiguant protest.

In like manner, more than eighteen centuries ago, there was One, aJso born of the Jewish lace, who was anaigned as a criminal, tortured, BEd put to death as a malefactor, though He was not only innocent, but had never once been tainted even with the touch of sin. Yet He who hung there upon the Roman gibbet, racked with untold bodiiy torture, was enduring a crushing aud appalling agony of spirit infinitely more terrible. Foi the sinless One, to •whom nil! was repulsive horror, was "bearing the loathsome burden of our ems, the hideous accumulation of iniquity vicariously resting upon Him causing His heavenly Father to hide His face from Him; until, with the triumphant shout, "It is finished," now released from' the shocking burden, His holy and pure spirit joyfully speeds upwards to embrace His beloved Father. And whonoever will may claim that Siin-bcaring death as the complete satisfaction and indemnification for his or her transgressions, which, once punished and atoned £oi t cannot be punished a second time.

Eight hundred acres of land at Whakarewarewa, Rotorua, have been fenced in, with ft view to being planted as a forest reserve.

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