infinitum'. The secretary for signing, and the clerk for writing your
commission; the cashier for delivering it, and the messenger for
informing you of it, have all their fixed prices. Have you a lawsuit,
the judge announces to you that so much has been offered by your
opponent, and so much is expected from you, if you desire to win your
cause. When you are the defendant against the Crown, the attorney or
solicitor-general lets you know that such a douceur is requisite to
procure such an issue. Even in criminal proceedings, not only honour,
but life, may be saved by pecuniary sacrifices.

A man of the name of Martin, by profession a stock-jobber, killed, in
1803, his own wife; and for twelve thousand livres--he was acquitted, and
recovered his liberty. In November last year, in a quarrel with his own
brother, he stabbed him through the heart, and for another sum of twelve
thousand livres he was acquitted, and released before last Christmas.
This wretch is now in prison again, on suspicion of having poisoned his
own daughter, with whom he had an incestuous intercourse, and he boasts
publicly of soon being liberated. Another person, Louis de Saurac, the
younger son of Baron de Saurac, who together with his eldest son had
emigrated, forged a will in the name of his parent, whom he pretended to
be dead, which left him the sole heir of all the disposable property, to
the exclusion of two sisters. After the nation had shared its part as
heir of all emigrants, Louis took possession of the remainder. In 1802,
both his father and brother accepted the general amnesty, and returned to
France. To their great surprise, they heard that this Louis had, by his
ill-treatment, forced his sisters into servitude, refusing them even the
common necessaries of life. After upbraiding him for his want of duty,
the father desired, according to the law, the restitution of the unsold
part of his estates. On the day fixed for settling the accounts and
entering into his rights, Baron de Saurac was arrested as a conspirator