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The Green Bag.

sul had substituted the personal designation cause. The whole legality of this prosecu tion for sedition is questioned by lawyers. of "Nicholas II." With biting irony the The Russian Cónsul-General at Königsberg counsel for the defence observed that "the supplied the German authorities with a after-dinner glance which permitted the translation of the Russian Criminal Code, mutilation of whole passages and the inser showing that the essential condition of the tion of others, must have been "hasty" indeed. validity of legal proceedings in Germany for Another interesting incident occurred dur sedition against the Czar and his empire is ing the trial. Among the confiscated papers that reciprocal treatment shall be meted out were a number of prints and pictures, chiefly by the Russian Government for similar of caricatures of the Czar. One of these the fences within its jurisdiction. The Russian President of the Court held up as deserving Cónsul-General omitted, however, the sav of particular execration, and condemned it ing clause, which demanded that the recip as an example of the means by which the rocity in question must be explicitly guaran Social Democrats poisoned the minds of the teed by act, statute, or treaty. Such an un illiterate. Herr Haase informed the presid derstanding only exists between Russia and ing Judge that the picture was a well-known Austria. The German authorities blindly caricature that had appeared in the German accepted the Consul-General's assurances comic paper Simplicissimiis. Another strik without further inquiry, and on the seventh ing incident was the evidence of the Russian day of the trial the testimony of experts Professor Herr von Reussner, Professor of proved that reciprocal treatment was not Civil and Criminal Law at the University of guaranteed, and frantic inquiries to a'.l the Tomsk, a most distinguished legal author Foreign Departments of State confirmed ity, who has received from the Czar the the discovery. Order of St. Anne,- who voluntarily resigned The real defendants in this remarkable his chair when censured by the Russian Gov trial were not the nine poor prisoners in the ernment forprotestingagajnstthe wanton illtreatment of his students by Russian sol dock, but the Czar and his Government, and all interest during this trial was diverted diers. At the trial he gave a detailed ac count of the inner social and political life of from the peasant prisoners to the internal the Russian Government. His evidence was state of Russia. This change of interest was the work of the admirable Bar employed for a remarkable indictment of the abuses and the defence. In legal acumen, in dexterity brutalities of the system. His evidence, in catching a point and manipulating it, in all which occupied the greater part of one day's the qualities that go to make able cross-ex sitting, read like a page out of the history of aminers and forceful advocates, they were the Middle Ages, and is regarded as the great event of the trial. The object of call I the superiors of the Crown lawyers, and in knowledge of law—German and Russian— ing him as a witness was to prove the accu they were the superiors of the Bench. racy of a number of allegations against the method of the Russian Government which AN electrocution at Sing Sing is thus de were contained in the confiscated pamph scribed in the Laiv Times: lets. Another witness nearly as impressive was M. Buchholz who spoke as a man of af The toilet of the chair is a somewhat dread ordeal. First comes the barber, who crops fairs who had practical experience of the the hair close to the scalp, and shaves on the grinding tyranny he described. He told sev left side of the head a space about the size of eral stories of injustice and cruelty, and pointed out that the murderers of Ministers a five'shilling piece. A bath follows, and the were the deliberate avengers of their victims, prisoner is next led to a cell where he puts on the last suit he will ever wear. The right that punishment followed their tyrannous leg of the trousers has the outer seam ripped measures as inevitably as effect followed