The Telegraph - Friday, June 14, 1895

Parisian Parlance.
May 4.

The French Press gave a Bowdlerised account of the Wilde trial, but rather to illustrate the difference in the mode of criminal procedure in England as compared with that of France. They pay the highest compliment to the summing up of the judge - a practice abolished six years ago in France, but one of the two barrels of the pistol the judge used generally without pity, for a prisoner - and at the same time agree with his model impartiality, brilliant logic, and clear common sense. They regret that a French judge fills the role of a public prosecutor rather than of a neutral president, never interfering, save to keep the trial within the boundaries of the law. In France, however, the judges are neither permanent nor well paid, they are selected in turn to preside at assizes, following the Ministry in power. In England, a judge is less difficult to remove, perhaps, than a commander-in-chief of the army.