court has " a summary jurisdiction in all claims up to fifteen hundred francs value." The third court in order upward is the Court of Appeals. It is a district court, there being twenty-six districts in France in which a single court, with authority over several departments sits. In Paris this court has seventy-two judges; in the prov inces from twenty to thirty-one. The court is divided into three chambers, with a president (chief justice) for all, and a president for each, and also a number of puisne judges, called " counsellors of appeal." First is the civil chamber. It hears ap peals civil on questions of fact; and what is curious, acts as "a criminal court where great officials like judges and knight com manders of the Legion of Honor are ac cused." It takes seven judges to make up the acting bench. Second is the criminal chamber. Here an appeal can come from a convicted crimi nal, or from the public prosecutor if he thinks a prisoner's acquittal wrong, or that he was too lightly sentenced. A quorum here needs but five judges. The third chamber is that of indictments, with power to commit or discharge. The only jury in civil cases — and this a judge of the Court of Appeals presides over — is one of ten which values private prop erty taken for public purposes. There is a French Assize Court that goes on a circuit. It is held in some chief town of a department (and there are eighty-seven departments in France) every three months. It deals with offences under the penal code. Guilt or innocence is settled by a jury of twelve, by a majority verdict. Six to six is considered an acquittal. Three judges of the department, or one with two from a neighboring one, make up the bench. The Court of Cassation is " the supreme court of appeal for all France." It sits in Paris. You can appeal from any court to this. Mr. Moriarty says : " An appeal to the Court of Cassation, which is specially
called, not appel, but pourvoi en cassation, can only be made on a point of law, e. g. — an error in an indictment, or a misinterpre tation of an article of the code, or an excess of powers committed by a court." The court is called a school of jurisprudence; it has a bar of its own not connected with the other courts; and arguments brought before it " must show a minute knowledge of the letter of the law." This court has a cor rective power " over the whole French ju diciary." It has " a first president, three presidents of chambers, and forty-five puisne judges, styled counsellors." It has three chambers — one to examine the propriety of civil appeals; one to hear them; and one "to hear criminal appeals direct." All the courts I have mentioned so far are those that comprise the ordinary jurisdiction; but, there are, besides, boards of arbi tration and commercial courts. The first of these settle suits between workmen and their employers, and the second, commer cial disagreements. There is also an ad ministrative court, divided in three parts, to judge " all charges against servants of the state in their official capacity." The administrative court acts under a special procedure, and with so much official bias that the action of a private individual in them against a state official is apt to come to grief. Still another court, called the Tribunal of Conflicts, sits to tell whether a case comes under the courts of ordinary jurisdiction, or otherwise. "All French judges are appointed by the chief of the state." Only misconduct is a cause for their removal — except that the jus tices of the peace can be dismissed summarily and without cause. The French judges are not highly paid. The president of the Court of Cassation gets only thirty thousand francs ($6,000), while the other members of this court must put up with from $3,600 to $5,000. In the provinces judges of the first instance get from $480 to $2,000 a year. Justices of the peace in Paris get about
