to him who furnishes a
place of meeting, or who has called or directed a prohibited assembly,
or who has taken any part whatever in quality of a chief or director.
The above decree was accompanied by a circular, dated Jan. 16, 1824,
emanating from the same high quarter, addressed to the justices of the
peace, municipalities, &c. and conceived in the same spirit with its
_respectable_ associate.

This iniquitous and anti-christian enactment has been carried into
effect in several instances. M. Charles Rochat, minister of the gospel,
of the Canton de Vaud, of a respectable family, and whose brother is one
of the national clergy, of the Canton, is the first on whom the severity
of the law has fallen. Five persons were found seated round a table in
his own house, with the bible open before them: the wife of M. Rochat, a
common friend, with two of his sisters, and a young person, a stranger.
This was the whole crime. M. Rochat was found guilty of reading in his
own house, before his wife and four friends, a chapter of the New
Testament! For this he was at first condemned to three year's
banishment, which, however, the tribunal of appeal reduced to one year.

Next, M. Olivier was banished for two years, by the sentence of the same
law.

Like judgments have been pronounced against M. M. Chavannes, Juvet, and
Fivas, of whom, the two former, were previously confined _ten weeks in
prison_.

Two females also were banished by the judgment de premiere instant, of
the tribunal of Orbe and Yverden, on the charge of similar meetings
being held at their houses; one of whom, however, has been since
acquitted at Lausanne, as it was proved that she lived with her mother,
and consequently that it was at her house, and not at hers, that some
friends, after dinner, read the bible together.

But it is not merely in the Canton de Vaud that these enormous instances
of injustice have occurred: at Neufchatel, an act of arbitrary power has
just been committed, almost incredible from its severity. An old law,
long obsolete, has been discovered, which, it seems, was passed two or
three hundred years back. An agriculturer has been made the first victim
of its revived powers. He received into his house M. Juvet, one of the
condemned ministers of the Canton de Vaud, and allowed him to administer
the sacrament. For this crime he was thrown into prison for three
months, and was then brought up in chains, and with a rope drawn tight
round his neck,