played at billiards, he denied everything. Special proceedings were instituted against him, and he remained in the prisons of La Seine.

Durochat was condemned to death, and executed. He underwent his fate with perfect indifference. Vidal was shut up in the principal prison of Seine and Oise, where the prosecution commenced in Paris was carried on.

Towards the end of the year 8 (1799-1800), four years after the assassination of the courier, Dubosq, having been arrested for a robbery in the department of Allier, where he had retired under a false name, was recognised in the prisons, brought to Paris, and thence to Versailles, to be tried at the same time as Vidal before the criminal tribunal. It was discovered, on searching the registers, that while very young he had been condemned to the galleys for life for stealing plate at the archbishop's of Besançon. He had afterwards escaped at the time of the revolutionary disturbances. Arrested in Paris for a second robbery, he had been again condemned, and had again escaped. Retaken at Rouen, he had once more succeeded in breaking loose; and, arrested at Lyons, he had a fourth time broken from prison. This last escape occurred a few weeks before the attack on the mail and double murder in the forest of Lenart. Like Vidal, however, he denied everything.

Dubosq and Vidal, being both confined in the prison of Versailles, planned an escape, which they soon executed. After having climbed over the two first walls, and reached the top of the outside one, they had only to jump down twenty-five feet into the street. Vidal tried first, and succeeded; Dubosq broke his leg in the attempt, and was retaken. The Citizen Daubenton spared no pains to discover Vidal's retreat. He learned soon afterwards that he had been arrested at Lyons for new crimes. He was brought back to Versailles; but in the meantime Dubosq had recovered from his fracture, and found means to break out of prison. Vidal was tried alone, condemned, and executed.

At length, in the latter part of the year 9 (1800-1801), Dubosq was again arrested, and immediately brought before the criminal tribunal of Versailles. The president had ordered a blonde wig to be placed on his head before the witnesses were called in. "The Citizen Perault, a member of the legislative assembly, and one of those who had seen the four cavaliers who had dined at Mongeron on the day of the murder of the courier, and who had recognised Lesurques as one of them, stated that there was a striking resemblance between Dubosq and Lesurques." The woman Alfroy, who had before sworn to Lesurques as one of the four, declared that she was mistaken in her evidence before the tribunal de la Seine, and that she was now firmly convinced that it was not Lesurques but Dubosq that she had seen. Το this evidence Dubosq replied by stubborn denials. It was proved that he was intimate with the guilty parties; indeed he could

not deny it; and the declarations of Couriol, Durochat, and Madeleine Breban, had great weight against him.

He was unanimously condemned, and was executed the 3d Ventose, in the year 10 (22d February 1802). At length the last of the accomplices denounced by Couriol and Durochat, Rossi, otherwise Ferrari, or the Great Italian, whose real name was Beroldy, was discovered near Madrid, and given up at the request of the French government. Having been tried and sentenced to death at Versailles, he testified the utmost repentance, and went to execution, receiving religious attentions from Monsieur de Grandpré. After the execution, Monsieur de Grandpré stated to the president that he had been authorised by the criminal to confess the justice of his sentence. The same Monsieur Grandpré deposited with M. Destrumeau, a notary at Versailles, a declaration written and signed by Beroldy, otherwise Rossi, which was not to be published until six months after his death. The following is the tenor of this document, which is given, with all the particulars of this extraordinary case, in a memoir written by M. Daubenton, the Juge de Paix. "I declare that the man named Lesurques is innocent; but this declaration, which I give to my confessor, is not to be published until six months after my death."

Thus terminated this long judicial drama. Ferrari, otherwise Rossi, was the sixth executed as one of the authors or accomplices in the murder of the Lyons courier, besides Richard, who was condemned to the galleys for having received the stolen property, and for having concealed Couriol, and afterwards assisted him to fly. Yet it was most distinctly proved, in the course of the trials, that there were only five murderers. The one who, under the name of Laborde, had taken his place beside the courier, and the four horsemen who rode on the horses hired by Bernard, dined at Mongeron, and took coffee and played at billiards at Lieursaint.

The widow and family of Lesurques, relying on these facts, and supported by the declarations of Couriol and Durochat, the confessions of Rossi and Vidal, and the retractions of the witnesses in Dubosq's trial, applied for a revision of the sentence so far as concerned Lesurques, in order to obtain a rehabilitation (a judicial declaration of his innocence, and the restoration of his property), if he should be proved the victim of an awful judicial error. The Citizen Daubenton devoted the latter part of his life, and the greater part of his fortune, to the discovery of the truth. In the conclusion of his memoir, he declared that, according to his conviction, there were sufficient grounds to induce the government to order a revision of Lesurques's sentence. He concluded his statement by saying, that "the Calases, the Servens, and all the others for whom the justice of our sovereigns had ordered a like revision, had none of them had such strong presumptions in their favour as the unhappy Lesurques."

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But the right of revision no longer existed in the French code. Under the Directory, the Consulate, and the Restoration, the applications of the widow and family of Lesurques were equally unsuccessful. All that the family could obtain was the restoration, in the two last years of the reign of the elder Bourbons, of part of the property sequestrated according to the law in force at the time of Lesurques's execution.

Since the revolution of 1830, the Lesurques family have again appealed to the Chambers. In the session of 1834, a report in favour of the claims of the family was made by a committee which sat upon their case. The case was then sent back for the consideration of the Minister of Justice and the Minister of Finance. Since that step, the question has remained in abeyance. The widow of Lesurques died in the month of October 1842. eldest son fell fighting in the ranks of the French army. A son and daughter only remain, whom their mother, on her deathbed, adjured to continue the pious labour which she had commenced the day when her husband perished on the scaffold.

His

CASES IN AMERICA.

MRS CHILD, in her interesting work, "Letters from New York" (1843), offers some humane reflections on the uselessness and barbarity of capital punishments, accompanied with a notice of two cases in which circumstantial evidence led to the execution of the wrong parties.

"The testimony from all parts of the world is invariable and conclusive, that crime diminishes in proportion to the mildness of the laws. The real danger is in having laws on the statute-book at variance with universal instincts of the human heart, and thus tempting men to continual evasion. The evasion even of a bad law is attended with many mischievous results: its abolition is always safe. In looking at capital punishment in its practical bearings on the operation of justice, an observing mind is at once struck with the extreme uncertainty attending it. Another thought which forces itself upon the mind in consideration of this subject, is the danger of convicting the innocent. Murder is a crime which must of course be committed in secret, and therefore the proof must be mainly circumstantial. This kind of evidence is in its nature so precarious, that men have learned great timidity in trusting to it. In Scotland it led to so many terrible mistakes, that they long ago refused to convict any man of a capital offence upon circumstantial evidence.

A few years ago a poor German came to New York, and took lodgings, where he was allowed to do his cooking in the same room with the family. The husband and wife lived in a perpetual quarrel. One day the German came into the kitchen

with a clasp-knife and a pan of potatoes, and began to pare them for his dinner. The quarrelsome couple were in a more violent altercation than usual; but he sat with his back_towards them, and being ignorant of their language, felt in no danger of being involved in their disputes. But the woman, with a sudden and unexpected movement, snatched the knife from his hand, and plunged it in her husband's heart. She had sufficient_presence of mind to rush into the street and scream murder. The poor foreigner, in the meanwhile, seeing the wounded man reel, sprang forward to catch him in his arms, and drew out the knife. People from the street crowded in, and found him with the dying man in his arms, the knife in his hand, and blood upon his clothes. The wicked woman swore, in the most positive terms, that he had been fighting with her husband, and had stabbed him with a knife he always carried. The unfortunate German knew too little English to understand her accusation or to tell his own story. He was dragged off to prison, and the true state of the case was made known through an interpreter; but it was not believed. Circumstantial evidence was exceedingly strong against the accused, and the real criminal swore unhesitatingly that she saw him commit the murder. He was executed, notwithstanding the most persevering efforts of his lawyer, John Anthon, Esq. whose convictions of the man's innocence were so painfully strong, that from that day to this he has refused to have any connexion with a capital case. Some years after this tragic event the woman died, and on her deathbed confessed her agency in the diabolical transaction; but her poor victim could receive no benefit from this tardy repentance; society had wantonly thrown away its power to atone for the grievous wrong.

Many of my readers will doubtless recollect the tragical fate of Burton, in Missouri, on which a novel was founded, and which still circulates in the libraries. A young lady, belonging to a genteel and very proud family in Missouri, was beloved by a young man named Burton; but unfortunately her affections were fixed on another less worthy. He left her with a tarnished reputation. She was by nature energetic and high-spirited; her family were proud; and she lived in the midst of a society which considered revenge a virtue, and named it honour. Misled by this false popular sentiment and her own excited feelings, she resolved to repay her lover's treachery with death. But she kept her secret so well, that no one suspected her purpose, though she purchased pistols, and practised with them daily. Mr Burton gave evidence of his strong attachment by renewing his attentions when the world looked most coldly upon her. His generous kindness won her bleeding heart, but the softening influence of love did not lead her to forego the dreadful purpose she had formed. She watched for a favourable opportunity, and shot her betrayer when no one was near to witness the

horrible deed. Some little incident excited the suspicion of Burton, and he induced her to confess to him the whole transaction. It was obvious enough that suspicion would naturally fasten upon him, the well-known lover of her who had been so deeply injured. He was arrested, but succeeded in persuading her that he was in no danger. Circumstantial evidence was fearfully against him, and he soon saw that his chance was doubtful; but with affectionate magnanimity he concealed this from her. He was convicted and condemned. A short time before the execution he endeavoured to cut his throat; but his life was saved for the cruel purpose of taking it away according to the cold-blooded barbarism of the law. Pale and wounded, he was hoisted to the gallows before the gaze of a Christian community.

The guilty cause of all this was almost frantic when she found that he had thus sacrificed himself to save her. She immediately published the whole history of her wrongs and her revenge. Her keen sense of wounded honour was in accordance with public sentiment, her wrongs excited indignation and compassion, and the knowledge that an innocent and magnanimous man had been so brutally treated, excited a general revulsion of popular feeling. No one wished for another victim, and she was left unpunished, save by the dreadful records of her

memory.

Few know how numerous are the cases where it has subsequently been discovered that the innocent suffered instead of the guilty. Yet one such case in an age is surely enough to make legislators pause before they give a vote against the abolition of capital punishment. But many say, 'the Old Testament requires blood for blood. So it requires that a woman should be put to death for adultery, and men for doing work on the Sabbath, and children for cursing their parents; and 'If an ox were to push with his horn, in time past, and it hath been testified to his owner, and he hath not kept him in, but that he hath killed a man or a woman, the ox shall be stoned, and his owner also shall be put to death.' The commands given to the Jews in the old dispensation do not form the basis of any legal code in Christendom," and to select one command and leave the others out is manifestly absurd.

It is to be trusted, that, not alone from the chance of condemning a wrong party, but from general motives of humanity and a consideration of the utter uselessness of public executions in the way of example, capital punishments will ere long be numbered among the extinct barbarisms of a past age, and other and more rational means adopted for maintaining the integrity of the law and the peace of society.

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