manners and customs present many interesting
peculiarities. Yet they are true Italian patriots,
vehemently opposed to the Bourbons and to all
other forms of despotism, and admirable soldiers:
as they proved themselves in 1860.

Whosoever wishes to gain a real insight into
the Italy of the present moment, and to know
what she is, what she has done, and what she has
to do, should consult the volumes by Count
Arrivabene.

A JUDICIAL ERROR.

Jean Guigourès, a man seventy-four years
of age, lived, with his wife and a servant
maid, in a little house in the village of Casselcoudiac,
not far from the town of Bannalec,
in the French department of Finistère. The
house was a poor place; but the neighbours
deemed Guigourès a miserly man, and they
knew that he had recently received a considerable
sum of money. After midnight, early in the
morning of the 18th of January, 1854, the
Guigourès household were startled out of their
sleep by the breaking in of their door; and then
two men entered, with white shirts over their
working clothes, white handkerchiefs around
their necks and heads, and with blackened faces.
The elder of the two burglars appeared to be
about fifty years of age; and he carried a lighted
candle; the younger burglar seemed to be
between thirty and forty, and was armed with
a musket and pistol. With oaths and curses
they ordered old Guigourès to get up and show
them where his money was hidden. The old
man offered them bread and pancakes, but they
rejected his hospitality with scorn. The elder
burglar instead of accepting his refreshments
dragged and kicked his aged wife, and struck
and kicked him for trying to protect her:
while the younger took aim at them both
with his fire-arms, threatening to shoot them
and burn down their home if they did not
deliver up their money. M. Guigourès
nevertheless refused to point out his hoard. But
after breaking open many drawers and boxes,
the elder robber at last found in a cupboard
a sum of more than eighty pounds. While the
thieves were busy rifling this cupboard, M.
Guigourès escaped to the door; but was prevented
from getting out by a third robber, who had
been stationed there on the watch. When the
robbers left at daybreak, certain men hearing
the cries of the Guigourès household came to
them, and then started off in pursuit of the
thieves. The pursuers came near enough to the
burglars to hear them say, " We are followed.
Let us save ourselves."

Thus far, we have but the particulars of a
very common-place burglary; what follows is
extraordinary.

The footsteps of the burglars were traced
towards Bannalec. A search being made in
the cottage of a labourer of the name of
Auguste Baffet, a man in his fifty-first year, a
shirt, a handkerchief, and other things similar to
those worn by the thieves were found, muddy and
blood-stained. Baffet had a mate, Yves Louarn,
a labourer, thirty-seven years of age, and
suspicion fell on these two men. They were arrested,
and were confronted with the members of the
Guigourès family, who, however, could not
identify them. The witnesses could only say
they were similar in age, height, build, beard,
and clothes, to the burglars; the servant maid
almost affirming that she recognised their voices.
But the medical witness, strangely enough,
dispelled the doubts of the court and jury by
distinctly swearing that he found upon the brow
of Louarn, and behind the ears of Baffet,
notwithstanding the care with which they had been
shaved and washed, marks of soot or charcoal,
which had been applied with grease. The
explanations Baffet and Louaru gave of these
circumstances were set aside as inadmissible. The
prisoners were proved to have been both in
misery, and Baffet was proved to have been
threatened with a seizure of his furniture. It
was alleged that Louarn had proposed to a
comrade, on the 17th of January, to go and commit
a robbery, "where they would find corn and
money." The prisoners denied everything
charged against them. There was no other
evidence than what has been herein set forth;
a servant maid almost recognising their height
and voice; and a medical statement respecting
the remains of marks of blackened faces;
they were both found guilty; Baffet was
condemned to twenty years' imprisonment with
hard labour, and Louarn to transportation for
life. Nothing in the demeanour of these men,
remarks the reporter, indicated the perversity
they had evinced. Baffet died in the hulks at
Brest in 1855, and Louarn died at Cayenne in
1856.

An interval of six years. In the French law
reports for the end of February, 1860, stands
a report of a case before the High Court of
Revision, with these headings in italics:
"Judicial error—two innocent men condemned to
hard labour—their deaths in the hulks—
condemnation of the guilty—prohibition to publish
the report—appeal in cassation,"—i.e. revision.

Four or five years after the burglary—
unhappily more than four or five years too late—
and after the innocent had died of the sufferings
due only to the guilty, in the month of
February, 1860, three men, named Jambon,
Ollivier, and Mallon, and a woman called
Widow Sinquin, were clearly found guilty of
the burglary committed in the house of the
Guigourès family, and were justly condemned
to the identical penalties under which the two
innocent men had died.

But when trying and punishing the guilty, the
assize court of Finistère, which had permitted the
publication of the evidence against the innocent,
prohibited the publication of any report of their
proceedings. This power appears to have been
conferred upon the tribunals, by a clause in a
decree issued by the Prince-President of the
Republic, on the 17th February, 1852. Oddly
enough, certain of the guilty prisoners appealed
against the sentence which condemned them,