We fancy our readers will be somewhat surprised on reading the report of the trial of two Chinese at the U. S. Consulate, on the 21st inst., for shooting at the master of the barque H. N. Carleton, It seems donbtfal in the first place whether the Consul-General was right in trying in his own Court two men who are of Chinese birth, and therefore subjects of China, The Mixed Court would have seemed a more fitting i which to deal with the on this is more or less a doubtful point, and not the one which we purpose to discuss at the present moment. What strikes uss remarkable is the constitution and proceedings of the Court itself. In order to take cog-nuisance of their offence, the Consul-General must have regarded them as liable to American law because the offence was committed on an American ship; and it is therefore by American forms of law that they should be tried. He cannot erect an independent Court to try " special case, but can sit only as President in an American Court. Two distinct proceedings were necessary in the case; @ preliminary enquiry should have been held, as before a Police magistrate, to ascertain whether ground existed for committing the accused for trial; and the formal trial which was held on Thursday could only properly take place after the men had been formally committed as a consequence of such enquiry. The two proceedings seem to be here mixed up in one, in a way which would certainly not be legal in an English Court of law, and we fancy cannot be consistent with American jure.
But besides the omission of this preliminary enquiry, a still graver fault seems to us to exist in the constitution of the Court. The Consul-
General remarked, at the outset of the case, that he had no authority for summoning a Grand Jury. Perhaps not, bat he has authority under an Act of Congress to summon Associates to aid him in trying a case, and unless we are much mistaken no sentence exceeding 60 days' imprisonment can be legally passed by a Consular officer without Associates. It would follow, if we are right in this view, that the sentences of three years' and eighteen months' imprisonment passed upon the prisoners were illegal. We do not for a moment argue that they were too severe. The men are scoundrels, and richly deserve the punishment, We are writing only on the point of principle. And yeh another feature which strikes ug in the case, is the Consul-General's remark that "he had no power to assign Counsel in the case, nor could ho admit Counsel for the defence." We are greatly surprised to hear such a statement. We had been always under the impression that in American as in English law Courts it was always within the power of the judge to call on Counsel to assist an undefended prisoner; and we cannot but think that in this case Counsel would have protested at the outset against the constitution of the Court, With the peculiar turns of expression in which the Consul-General indulged, we have of course no concern, He is hardly complimentary to the democracy of New York, though it is perhaps true that it was in America the men learned the use of the revolver, The question "are you particepe criminia as addressed to a Chinaman, sounds, too, rather strangely, as though it were supposed that Latin as well as shooting had formed part of their democratic education. This, however, is by the way. What really seems tous to be subject for comment, is the procedure and constitution of the Court, After the above article was published in the Daily News, the Consul-General admitted the correctness of its argument, by having " new trial with the Taotai sitting as his associate on the bench.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.