Jonathan and His Continent Part 23

As in England, the accused is not allowed speech. If he has questions to put, his counsel is at his side, and speaks for him. It is the counsel who examine and cross-examine the witnesses, and plead before the jury.

The judge presides, and does nothing more.

The accused is provided with a chair in the middle of the room, almost in the midst of the public. Several times I was obliged to ask someone present: "Which of all those people is the prisoner?"

An American trial is completely shorn of parade. It is not, as in England, and especially in France, a grand spectacular performance, but simply a man appearing before his townsmen to plead guilty to a misdeed or to prove his innocence of it--it is a family wash, if I may be allowed the expression.

The simplicity of the procedure is such that one day, after having been introduced to a presiding judge, I was asked by him to take a seat at his side, so as to hear and see better all that went on.

Simplicity goes further still occasionally.

An accused, having one day got up and begun to apostrophise his judge in anything but polite terms, that representative of justice left his seat, took off his coat, made for the man, and gave him a sound drubbing; then, resuming his seat, he said to the lawyers:

"The incident, which has just occurred, has nothing to do with the case that we have to consider. As a man, I have given him a thras.h.i.+ng. As judge, I will now proceed with his case; please, go on."

This magistrate, far from resenting the insults of the accused, thought no more of them, after having paid the man cash in this way. He summed up in most impartial fas.h.i.+on, and the jury returned a verdict of "not guilty."

In France, we pay a legion--a host rather--of judges and police officers, to look after our security, and never should we dream of helping them in the exercise of their functions. If a crime remain wrapped in mystery, we say to ourselves: "I pay the police, it is for them to discover the criminal; it is not my business, and, besides, the profession of detective is not in my line."

It is not the same in the United States. There public safety concerns everyone.

The population of a town feels dishonoured by the perpetration of a crime in their midst. Everyone is on the alert to catch the criminal; men organise themselves into bands to search the country round. An a.s.sa.s.sin is tracked in the woods with bloodhounds and guns, like a wild beast; if he is discovered, and offers a very obstinate resistance, a bullet is lodged in his body, and the hunters go tranquilly home again.

When a crime has produced a violent sensation in a town and it is feared the criminal may not be judged there with impartiality, he is taken to a distance, out of the way of prejudices, to be tried.

This is a curious contrast with lynch law, of which I shall speak in another chapter.

Something else to admire.

In England and France, a jury only p.r.o.nounces upon the innocence or guilt of the accused. In England, a jury has not even, as it has in France, the right to admit extenuating circ.u.mstances. English and French juries are often astounded when they hear the judge p.r.o.nounce sentence.

Their intention was to get the accused sent to prison for a year or two, and the judge gives him, perhaps, ten years' penal servitude.

In cases of a.s.sa.s.sination in England, the clerk of the court says to the jury, at the end of their sitting:

"Do you find the prisoner guilty of wilful murder?"

"Certainly he is guilty of killing, but in a moment of jealousy, perhaps. His wife deceived him, and he killed the wretch who dishonoured him."

"You have nothing to do with all that," the English jury is told; "you are merely to say whether the prisoner at the bar has done wilful murder."

And the jury, forced to say _Yes_, are obliged to send to the gibbet a man whom in their hearts they may respect. They are forced to condemn to death a miserable fellow-creature, maddened by misfortune, just as they do an a.s.sa.s.sin who has committed a long-planned murder of his neighbour for money.

The American juries not only decide the question of a prisoner's culpability or innocence, but they themselves p.r.o.nounce sentence.

"We find," they say, "that the prisoner is guilty of such and such a crime in the first degree, or in the second degree, etc., and we therefore sentence him to such and such punishment."

Something which is much to be blamed is the procrastination of American justice. By going the right way to work, a condemned criminal may often succeed in getting his case to be tried again and again.

In cases of murder, what good can it do to keep a poor wretch, that it is decided to hang, in prison for a year or more? It is adding torture to death penalty.

If that were only all.

Jonathan is such a philanthropist that he with difficulty makes up his mind to execute a fellow-creature even legally. So, when he has kept a year in prison a criminal, whom he is at last forced to hang, he leads him to the scaffold, puts a rope round his neck, jerks him up in the air, and manages to take twelve or sixteen minutes dispatching him.

This is philanthropy with a vengeance, and it is to be hoped that execution by electricity, which has just been adopted by the Governor of New York State, will put an end to such sickening proceedings.

It is to be hoped, also, that the Americans will some day do better than that. I, for my part, do not doubt that they will abolish death sentences before very long. They are too intelligent not to understand that the death sentence deters no criminal, and this for a very simple reason. A crime is committed under the impulse of pa.s.sion, or it has been premeditated. In the first case, the criminal never thinks of the punishment to come, he is blinded by pa.s.sion; in the second, he always believes he has planned his crime in such a manner as not to be found out.

To lighten this rather lugubrious subject, I will terminate with a little anecdote, which has never seen the light, and which I think is too delightfully humorous and pathetic to be allowed to remain unpublished.

The scene was the smoking-room of the Savage Club.

A notorious criminal had been hanged in the morning. Several members of the club were talking of the affair, and each one described what his feelings would be if he were led to the scaffold to be hanged.

During this conversation, an actor, well known, but to whom managers, I scarcely know why, never entrust any but secondary parts, sat silent in an armchair, sending up long puffs of smoke soaring to the ceiling.

"h.e.l.lo, there is N., who has not given his opinion," said one of the group, suddenly noticing the actor: "I say, N., tell us how you would feel if you were being led to the scaffold."

The actor raised his eyes to the ceiling and, after another puff at his cigar, said quietly:

"Well, boys, I should feel that at last I was trusted with a leading part."

CHAPTER XXVI.

_Lynch Law.--Hanged, Burned, and Shot.--The Gaolers do not Answer for their Boarders.--The Humours of Lynching._

Lynch law is a summary justice which, in certain of the United States, is constantly being dealt out to criminals who, either from the insufficiency of the ordinary laws, or because of the absence of a judicial authority in the neighbourhood, might escape punishment. Not the least semblance of a trial, or even of examination, as a rule: the populace has taken it into its head that a certain individual is guilty of a crime, that suffices; he is sought out, torn from his family if he have one, led to the spot fixed upon for his execution, and there, without questioning or shrift, he is hanged, burned, or shot, according to the fancy of his executioners. Sometimes the criminal is in prison; but the process of the law is slow and uncertain, and the people fear that he may escape justice. Again, there may be a chance of the malefactor convincing the jury that he is innocent; this does not suit the humour of the enraged populace. They attack the prison, and demand that their prey be delivered over to them. If the governor of the prison refuses, the doors are burst open, and the prisoner is seized and forthwith led to execution.

It is to be hoped, for the credit of American civilisation, that this blot will soon be removed.

The word "Lynch" is derived from a proper name. John Lynch, a colonist of Carolina in the 17th century, was invested by his fellow-citizens with discretionary power to deal summarily with the social disorders inseparable from the growth of a colony. This measure was soon adopted in several other States of America for a similar reason.

The victims of Lynch law, innocent or guilty, are numerous. Before I went to America, I had no idea how numerous. Almost every day you may read in the American newspapers some horrible tale, such as the following:

"The village of Pemberton Ferry, in Florida, has just been plunged into the highest state of excitement by a horrible drama.