After a few preliminaries, the trial began with a violent denunciation of the accused by the public prosecutor--a stuggy, fierce-looking negro with bloodshot eyes, named Bazin, who thought he best performed his duty by abuse. As one of the prisoners was a lawyer, all the bar had inscribed their names as his defenders, and they showed considerable courage in the task they had undertaken. On the least sign of independence on their part, one after the other was ordered to prison, and the accused remained without a defender. The principal judge was Lallemand, of whom I have elsewhere spoken as combining gentleness with firmness; but he could scarcely make his authority respected by Bazin, the military termagant who led the prosecution. He browbeat the witnesses, bullied the jury, thundered at the lawyers, and insulted the prisoners. He looked like a black Judge Jeffreys. At last his language became so violent towards the audience, of whom we formed a part, that the diplomatic and consular corps rose in a body and left the court. I never witnessed a more disgraceful scene. I may add that the prisoners were condemned to death; but we interfered, and had their sentence commuted to imprisonment, which did not last long; whilst their black persecutor, seized by some insurgents the following year, was summarily shot.[17] This experience of the working of the trial-by-jury system did not encourage frequent visits to the tribunals, and afterwards I rarely went, except when some British subject was interested. In the capital are the court of cassation, the civil and commercial courts, and the tribuneaux de paix; and in the chief towns of the departments similar ones, minus the court of cassation. In fact, as far as possible, the French system has been taken as a model. The form is there, but not the spirit. The statistical tables connected with this subject have been very fully worked out in Major Stuart’s very interesting Consular Reports for 1876 and 1877. Here I am more concerned in describing how justice is administered. I may at once say that few have any faith in the decisions of the courts; the judges, with some bright exceptions, are too often influenced by pecuniary or political considerations, and the white foreigner, unless he pay heavily, has but slight chance of justice being done him.