KILLING NO MURDER.

Waikato Times, Volume II, Issue 88, 21 November 1872, Page 3

KILLING NO MURDER.

" Tn ky manage those mailers differently in France," is a phrase often quoted since used by Sterne. The recent trial of De fiourg tor the murder of bis wife, who had been false 1o him ; and when, for the first time within living memory, the eriminnl suffered death for such an offence. France has givon rise to 110 end of newspaper and pamphlet writing on the subject. Dumas led off with a brochure, entitled .U Homme Jem me, in which, us wc understand the notice of it in the Knglish papers, he justifies the view which tho juries in France had universally adopted when a ease of wife-murder came before them, Until Do Bourgo was put upon his trial, and even in his case, cold-bloodcd as it was, Jive years' imprisonment was the extent of his punishment. Tlie points of lmv through which the subject is discussed through the press are not manifold, but perhaps the most singular has been that adopted by the Paris Figaro. That journal publisher! a long report, covering some three or four columns, of a trial which had just, been held in Corsica, and in which tho usual procedure had been reversed, aud tho husband killed by the wife. She bad been driven to the dreadful act by the grossest insult and negleet. Young, high-born, beautiful, and rich, she had made a marriage of love, and for a few years onjoyed a life of perfect happiness. Hut then ber luisband, though not, it was alleged, from any fault of hers, grew weary of her, and not only left ber for other women, but at last carried on, almost openly, a liaison with ber own servant under ber own roof. The poor woman remonstrated earnestly, but with no avail, and at last, in a frenzy of jealous fury and outraged prido, she waited one night for her husband with a loaded pistol in her hand, and shot him dead as he lay asleep by tho side of bis paramour. Her counsel, in an nblo speech which kept the audience in tears, told the jury that it was their duty to treat her as they would treat a man, and that they know very well how readily they would have acquitted any husband who, in vindication of bis honour, had done, in a similar case what she had done. This pleading was irresistable, and the jury unanimously and unhesitatingly returned a verdict of " Not guilty " —a, verdict welcomed by a burst of applause which resounded through the court, and which the judge did not attempt to repress. This story was told with perfect gravity, and with all such usual details as the names of the accused, the judge, and the witnesses, and it was coppicd into most of tlie French, and also into a few foreign journals. Its obvious moral was that of Dumas' brochure—only with ine-le substituted for tue-la. Four days afterwards, Figaro, with sublime effrontery, coolily stated that the whole story, from beginning to end, was a myth, written "to treat the subject of the day from a familiar point of view.

But not only journalists and pamphleteers seek to interest the public in the question, it has been made a subject of stngc representation at the Palais Roynl and at the Varieties —two of the best attended theatres in Paris. At the former theatre Dumas' brochure was brought bodily on the stage, and choico extracts freely read from it by one of the characters, supposed to be his enthusiastic disciple and admirer. Tho fun, such as it is, of the piece turns upon the common determination of a newly-married couple on the nuptial night to be ready each to tako the other's life in case of insult or infidelity. Tho bride receives from her mother, ■with great solemnity, at the last moment, a " six-shooter " and a box of ball-cartridges, while the bridegroom rreeives from his nncle, as tho most appropriate of wedding gifts a huge cleaver with the emphatic words, " Trache-l-a." The bridegroom discovers in the ehimney-placo of the nuptial room a young viscount who has taken too much champagne, and, immediately assuming him to be the wife's lover, resolves to follow his uncle's advice and " chop her up." She uses in self-defence the "six-shooter" with great spirit, and its reports bring a rush of people to the room, very much amazed and mystified at this novel fashion of passing a nuptial night.