3-082-053 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Degradation of Captain Dreyfus: showing the correct way of breaking the sword, 1895. 'As regards the French army, most attention has been recently absorbed by the painful case of Captain Dreyfus, who was publicly degraded in the presence of 3000 troops on Jan. 5. "To the majority of my readers the trial, conviction, and punishment of Captain Alfred Dreyfus present but a faint interest. They do not know and scarcely care whether the unhappy man is guilty or not, and if they give the matter a moment's consideration at all, they will probably come to the conclusion that a set of presumably honourable men would not have passed that terrible sentence of military degradation on any but the most damning evidence. Knowing what I do know of the moral effect of military degradation even on those who have to inflict it, I am inclined to subscribe to that opinion myself. Thus far my comment on the erstwhile captain of artillery, who by the time these lines appear in print will stand branded as a social outcast whom no one, whether civil or military, will dare shake by the hand on the penalty of being looked upon as one contaminated by him".' By the author of "An Englishman in Paris". From "Illustrated London News", 1895.