Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 19, Number 52, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 March 1898 — ZOLA IS FOUND GUILTY. [ARTICLE]

ZOLA IS FOUND GUILTY.

Sentenced to a Year in Prison and a Fine of 3,000 Francs. Emile Zola has been sentenced to imprisonment for one year and to pay a fine of 3,000 francs. M. Perreux, manager of the ! Aurbre, the Paris newspaper twhieh printed Z'oln’s open letter to President Faure, is sentenced to imprisonment for four mouths, and to pay a tine of 3,000 francs. Zola’s appeal to the justice of his country has been in vain. The spectators within the court and the mob in the streets howled with joy when the sentence was pronounced. The mob yelled “Death to Zola” .and “Down with the Jews.”- Had it not been for the strong guard of police the mob would have dragged Zola from his carriage and killed him. This result has been expected ever since the complaint was filed. The charges were skillfully confined to Zola’s criticism of the Esterhazy court martial, and ignored the Dreyfus question. The Court steadily upheld this limitation of the issue. The jury was out less than half an hour. The court promptly gave Zola the limit of the law. It is inadequate to describe that distracted country by saying that France is no longer a republic. It is better and truer to say that France has never been a republic. No man dares cry “Vive la republique!” in the streets of Paris. “Zola has been condemned, and the army is avenged,” Cries the press and the public. Zola has been sentenced to a year in i prison for denouncing a gross public outrage upon justice, and Paris is gay and light-hearted over the belief that at last she has rid herself of the hated incubus which for weeks and months has trammeled trade and pleasure. The last day of the trial saw the culmination of the 'excitement and passion of the fourteen days already passed. The audience threw itself from one spasm of emotion into another until, at the" end, after expending/ its last strength in a delirium of excitement over the verdict and sentence, jt went away exhausted.