1 Entered at New York Post Office as Second Class Matter. FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY, 18 and 20 Astor Place, New York. A BILL FOR THE WEAKENING OF GREAT BRITAIN. THE RIGHT HON. IOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN, M.P. Nineteenth Century, London, April. VERY Unionist believes the Home-Rule Bii! would be disastrous to Ireland as well as in jurious to interests of Great Britain. The first of these propositions may be left for aemonstration by risnmen and an Englishman may be pardoned if he concerns himself mainly with the question, how far the interests or the honor of Great Britain will be affected by the measure. The relentless logic of geographical position prevents the possibility of disinterested detachment of the sister island. The measure just introduced by Mr. Gladstone is an attempt for the second time to give to Ireland the status and rank of a separate nation. When the English Home-Rulers speak of giving to Ireland the management of its own affairs, it is clear that they repeat the phrase by rote without the slightest intention of giving to it its natural interpretation. They ought to say that they propose to give to Ireland the management of such of its affairs as can be handed over to an Irish Assembly without risk or danger to this country, and I hope I may add, without the loss of honor that would be involved if all her Majesty's subjects were not fully safeguarded. With an intention so expressed every Liberal Unionist will agree, and it is our earnest desire that the Home-Rule Bill should be carefully examined in order to see how far these cardinal conditions have been observed. Dealing first with the question of interest, it is evident that the vital concern of Great Britain in any change is: First, that in case of war the Imperial Parliament shall, as at present, have absolute control over the forces and resources of the United Kingdom; and Second, that the fair contribution of Ireland at all times to Imperial expenditure shall be secured beyond the possibility of doubt. Neither of these conditions is provided for in the HomeRule Bill. No one is entitled to say that this country will not again have to make a gigantic effort to maintain its existence. All Europe is armed to the teeth, and the causes of dispute are very near the surface. Meanwhile, our interests are universal -our honor is involved in almost every land under the sun. Under such conditions it is necessary for Britain to be strong. The question is, shall we be as strong under the Home-Rule Bill as now? Home-Rulers assert that Ireland is now a source of weakness, and that the change proposed will secure her greater loyalty. Let us examine both these statements. All military experts agree that in case of war with a firstclass European Power, it would be possible to utilize the larger part of the forces now in barracks in Ireland, for foreign service. The peace of Ireland would be sufficiently secured by the constabulary. There would be no possibility of organized opposition to the will of the Imperial Parliament. The fair contribution of Ireland to the increased expenditure would be assured, because the Imperial Parliament would impose the taxes and control their collection. The Irish members in Parliament would not be permitted to indulge in any deliberate obstruction which threatened the safety of the commonwealth. After the establishment of a separate Parliament in Dublin, the amount and character of the assistance to Great Britain in time of trial, would be at the discretion of such Parliament. Either it and the Irish people would heartily approve of the war, or they would be hostile to it. In the former case the only difficulty which could arise would be as to the amount of contribution, and this would certainly be serious. At the best, the contribution of Ireland would not be likely to be adequate. But the probable hypothesis is that an Irish Parliament would be bitterly hostile to any war in which this country could possibly be engaged. We must not lightly forget the declarations of hatred to England which a few years ago formed the staple of Nationalist oratory. Such feelings cannot be reformed in a moment by concessions which even now are regarded as rights to be extorted by force and menace, rather than as the free-will offering of national good will. But, lorg standing animosities aside, what ground is there for supposing the sympathies of Nationalist Irishmen would be with Great Britian in a war? There are only three countries that could seriously menace our Imperial existence. As regards at least two of them the sympathies of the Irish majority are assured to them beforehand-in the case of France by identity of religion and gratitude for past aid, and in the case of the United States by the intimate relations which subsist between our Ire*land and the numerically greater Ireland established in America. As to Russia, the Irish Parliament would probably sympathize with her on account of the enmity of Italy, which country might be our ally in a war with Russia. If, then, in the time of our dire distress and utmost strain, the Irish Parliament declare hostility to the Imperial Parliament, what will be our situation? We shall be unable to remove a single man from the garrison of Ireland, and shall probably be compelled to reinforce it. We shall be unable to prevent the arming and drilling of the people, which may take place with the connivance of the authorities under circumstances which will render interference impossible. We cannot prevent the formation of Gaelic or athletic clubs, which, under various pretexts, will serve to enrol a disciplined force in every district. Even without resorting to such methods, the Irish Parliament will have constitutionally at its disposal a large force of armed men, numbering many thousands, in the shape of police. There can be no doubt that the military position of Great Britain would be greatly weakened under the Home-Rule Bill. As to the second point, the contribution by Ireland of her just quota to Imperial expenditure, there is absolutely no certainty that the present amount of customs duties will be collected after Home Rule is established. Customs duties will be the tribute paid to an alien Parliament and taxation in a foreign garb. Smuggling will be a patriotic duty. There is no method available to the Imperial Parliament to obtain from Ireland even the reduced quota that Mr. Gladstone promises; but there is opened up an endless vista of recrimination, irritation, and possible conflict through the financial part of what is recommended to us as a permanent and continuing settle ment. Summing up, we may say that the interests of Great Britain are entirely sacrificed and ignored by this Bill, which would seriously weaken the country in time of war, and which would further impose a heavy fine on the British taxpayer for the privilege of handing Ireland over to anarchy, and endangering the existence of the British Empire. THE HOME-RULE BILL AND THE ARMY. THE RIGHT HON. LORD ASHBURNE. Condensed for THE LITERARY DIGEST from a Paper in National Review, London, April. THE HE Home-Rule Bill is so full of monstrosities, absurdities, and injustices that it never can and never will pass. It would smash up the Empire, distract Parliament, and plunge Ireland into all the wretchedness of bankruptcy and all the miseries of civil war. Ireland, although placed in the position of a suspected province, whose justice is denied, and whose honesty is questioned, is given a Legislature with vast powers for harm. Being handed over the magistracy and police, Ireland will have the interests of Great Britain and the minority practically at its mercy. It has, however, been said by some as a kind of comfort that the military forces of the Queen are independent of the Irish Executive, and that they will remain amenable only to orders from London. This idea was vastly strengthened by Mr. Campbell-Bannerman, the Secretary of State for War, who, in the debate on the first reading, in reply to Colonel Waring used these words: The position of the troops and militia will remain just as at present. They will continue under the supreme control of the Commander-in-Chief under the Queen." The point involved in the question was whether the Lord Lieutenant and the new Home-Rule Executive would have any power over the army, and the answer might convey to the uninitiated that they would have no power. Lord Spencer, however, interrogated in the House of Lords, on March 13th, read an opinion that had been given as to the power of the Lord Lieutenant, "that under his patent he was entitled to give such orders as lie, as the highest civil authority, might deem to be necessary; in the exercise of his authority as the direct representative of the Queen, he had all the powers and prerogatives of the Crown in Ireland." It appears from the statement of Mr. Campbell-Bannerman that there is to be no change in the position of the army, and that it is to remain subject to the same control as at present. There will, however, be a change in the position of the Viceroy. He is given an Executive Committee of the Privy Council, an Irish Cabinet, to aid him; and it is to be assumed that in all important matters he will be guided by their advice. There could be no matter of business or administration more important than exercising this "power and prerogative," and therefore it is to be inferred that the Irish Cabinet would be constant advisers on the subject. Now what is the position of things which it is the serious and deliberate intention of Government to leave "just as at present." Is the Lord-Lieutenant “exercising all the powers and prerogatives of the Crown in Ireland" to be still "entitled to give such orders as the highest civil authority might deem to be necessary"? Is he to exercise this function alone or subject to the advice of his Executive? If he act against their advice and they resign, how is the deadlock to be got over? If, acting with or without the advice of his Executive, he proclaim martial law, what are the troops to do? Again, is the transit and billeting of the troops to be left at the mercy of a new police and a new magistracy? If they won't act and are entirely out of sympathy with the "route" ordered, who is to force them to act? If the soldiers do so, they would be acting without the sanction of the civil power, and against the civil power. They would probably so act; but this would be revolution and civil war. Again: Is it intended that the new magistrates the summary jurisdiction of the unknown future -are to have the power of requiring the aid of the troops in support of their orders, and, if necessary, of ordering the troops to fire? It is also to be noted that the whole postal and telegraph system of Ireland is to be placed under local control, and that military despatches and messages might be delayed or lost in transmission, and that the offending subordinate would be no longer subject to the stern control of the Postmaster-General in London. In the future, supposing such a monstrous Bill could conceivably pass, the position of the army would be almost as bad and difficult as that of the minority-if "the position of the troops and militia will remain just as at present." Under existing conditions no difficulty arises,. because both military and civil authorities are branches of the same Government. But under the new régime the civil authority in Ireland would not be responsible to the Imperial Government, whilst it might have the power and right to interfere, at its discretion, with the movement and distribution of all troops which chanced, for the time being, to be in Ireland, and its magistrates might possibly requisition their aid as they pleased in all riots or disturbances from whatever cause arising. It would be impossible, within the limits of our article, to work out all the complications which must result to the army if the Bill become law. All would be involved in hopeless and dangerous confusion; there would be grave conflicts of authorities and jurisdictions, and serious complications and dangers. SWEDISH-NORWEGIAN CONFLICTS. KNUD BERLIN. Translated and Condensed for THE Literary DigEST from a Paper in AT Tilskueren, Copenhagen, March. II. T present the Swedish-Norwegian conflict centres around the question of foreign representation, the Norwegians demanding Norwegian Consuls and Ministers independent of the Swedish. For tactical reasons the question of Consular representation is first upon the order of the day. It seems reasonable that a people whose navy and whose maritime transactions are onethird of those of the whole world, should be represented by native-born and patriotic citizens, especially as its trade demands it. And it seems that this matter might easily be arranged. Sweden cannot really be opposed to it, if Norway be willing to pay such Consuls. Practically there is no reason that the Swedish or Union-consuls should not remain, if Norwegian Consuls be placed beside them in all important ports. Many German States have Consuls in places where the German Empire also has placed Consuls. Sweden's real objection to Norwegian Consuls is the belief that this will be the first step towards separation. The Consular question is only the blind behind which Norway manœuvres for independent foreign Ministers. Norway will have a part in the foreign policy of the Union, and this demand is the central and salient point of the whole conflict. That a Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs should rule those of Norway is unjust and unfair. Norway is thereby placed in dependence upon Sweden. If such a Minister were a UnionMinister, then the whole affair would be natural and in order, but he is not; he is a Swedish officer and only responsible to the Swedish Rigsact." The Norwegians claim that the Rigsact" or, the "Act of Union," contains no warrant for the practice, and they say that the Swedes took advantage of them at a time when they were not alive to political questions as they are now. The Swedes say that though the practice is not sanctioned by the "Rigact," yet it is tacitly understood, and they add that the "Rigsact" nowhere calls for a Norwegian Minister of Foreign Affairs. The Norwegians point to historical events in support of their claims. In 1818 and 1819 some English traders organized a company for smuggling at Bodó in the Northland. The men of the company openly violated the Norwegian customs-law and broke into the warehouses in which their confiscated goods were kept. They complained to the English Government that they had been assaulted and robbed. The Home Government directed the English Minister to Sweden to examine into the affair. The result was that the smugglers not only got their goods returned, but that Norway was compelled to pay them damages in £18, The Norwegians accuse the Swedes of being the cause of, all this, and claim that this outrage would not have ended in Norwegian humiliation if they had had their own foreign representation, PRIVATE INTERNATIONAL LAW. A. PILLET, PROFESSOR IN THE FACULTY OF LAW AT Grenoble. Translated and Condensed for THE LITERARY DIGEST from a Paper in The Journal de Droit International Privé et de la Jurisprudence Comparée, Paris, March. W HEN people speak of international law, they are, as a general thing, thinking of those great questions that arise in the relations of States with each other, and of the principles commonly followed in settling such questions. The total of these principles constitutes a science which is called public international law or the law of nations. It is the law of nations which teaches what are the rights and reciprocal duties of nations, what should be the conduct of each of them towards the others, how far liberty of action extends, and at what point each ought to stop in order not to entrench on the liberty of another. The grave problems of the law of nations stand in the first rank among the difficulties which ensue from the distribution of the civilized world into independent and equal States; but other questions continually present themselves, questions which equally owe their origin to the fact of the plurality and independence of States, and which by their particular physiognomy, naturally attract the attention of the jurisconsult. These are the questions which it is customary to collect under the general title of private international law. The object of the law of nations is to trace the limits which States prescribe for their own activity, in the common interest. Is it not evident, however, if you consider the relations of nations with each other, that juridical science has not to concern itself only with those great juridical persons called States. It has to consider also the action of simple private persons, for the activity of the simple private person is still less susceptible than the activity of the State of being concentrated within a determined territory. At every instant the activity of private persons passes the frontiers on which there is an attempt to confine it. Suppose, for example, that a foreigner domiciled in France claims from another foreigner the payment of an obligation. Ought the French tribunals to consider themselves competent to decide the dispute brought before them, or ought they to refuse to consider it and send away the pleaders to their national jurisdictions? This is a question which at the same time concerns the general interests of France and the private interests of foreigners. The question is not purely French; it touches the exigencies of international commerce and the judges will have to decide points about which the law is silent, taking into account at the same time organic principles of their national judicial institutions and the legitimate demands of international commerce. Let us give another example. A Frenchman dies in Italy leaving property composed of goods scattered in several countries-in France, in Italy, in England. His nearest relations are not all of the same nationality. What law shall regulate this succession, the division of the property, the relations of the heirs with creditors and legatees? Shall it be the French law, the national law of the defunct, or for each piece of property the law of the place where it is, or for each heir his own law? This is what is called a conflict of law. Several systems of law apply to the same object, and you must choose between them. How will you choose the system which will exclude all the others and, if it is possible to admit their concurrent authority, how will you divide their different authorities? There exists another category of questions which form part of the conflict of laws, those questions which concern the exercise in one country of rights acquired in another country. A typical example of this sort of questions is the famous one of the execution of foreign judgments. Another example, nearly as celebrated as the one just named, is whether people regularly divorced in one country can marry again in another country where divorce is not allowed. All these difficulties are summed up in the question whether an act accomplished in the territory of one State can produce consequences in the territory of another State. The instances cited show that private international law is a science, the object of which is the juridical regulation of international relations of a private order. Total Abstinence and Prohibition.-The logic of the times is tending toward the acceptance of the dual doctrine, total abstinence for the individual, and absolute Prohibition for the State. We must therefore have conscientious political Prohibition, not faint, uncertain, spasmodic, or intermittent, but continuous, determined, unremitting effort, until victory is achieved.-Demorest's Family Magazine New York, May. SOCIOLOGICAL. SOCIAL PROBLEMS AND A RECENT CONGRESS IN BRUSSELS. Condensed for THE LITERARY DIGEST from an Editorial Paper in Law Magazine and Review, London, February. find abroad, as well as at home, a somewhat self WE after ing but probably fairly strong party, professing to combine what are commonly called Democratic and Social Doctrines with Christianity. That this should be the case in Roman-Catholic countries may be matter for surprise to some of us, yet such is the fact. It is, perhaps, less surprising that we should have a similar phase of Politico-Religious thought among ourselves. Congresses on mixed Social and Political or Social and Religious questions may not always seem to do much more than other Congresses, and sometimes this may seem to be very little. Nevertheless, almost any Congress must mean a certain number of persons interested in common in some subject, and more or less pledged to some definite object which they desire to further. It may be said that these meetings generally end, as they began, in talk; yet, even so, the members will not have met for nothing, since the Press carries their utterances abroad, and disseminates them far and wide. This is much the same truth as was recognized by a great English novelist, when he makes Audley Egerton, in his last appearance on the hustings of the very borough which first sent him to the House, address himself practically to the reporters, and make his hustings speech the vindication before the world of his policy as a Minister. Something of this sort may have been the feeling of the first Congress of the Belgium Democratic League, held in Brussels, September 25th and 26th last, in the Maison des Ouvriers. Its leaders may not so much have expected to work an immediate change in the way of a general acceptance of their views throughout Belgium, as to show themselves to the world at large as a party large enough and strong enough to hold such a meeting in the capital. The League, which convened the Congress here under discussion, is, we are told, of recent formation, and has for its object the union of the strength of the Roman-Catholic Artisan or Workingmen's Party in Belgium. We are also told that the work of the League has been very differently appreciated, even by the local Roman-Catholic Press, a fact which hardly surprises us. To M. Van der Smissen, the writer of a notice of the proceedings in the Revue Générale, of Brussels, for December last, the Congress was both an event and a pledge of social peace. That it was an event we are quite willing to grant. We shall be sincerely pleased if it also turns out to be really a pledge of peace. The Congress, it is stated, did not attack masters. Yet the comfort which we might take to our souls from this fact is somewhat weakened, when we come to be told that what was put on its trial, as the phrase goes, was the institution of capital. We imagine that if capital be made the object of attack, it will be quite unnecessary to say anything against masters, as they would clearly cease to exist. Under these circumstances we find it a little difficult to grasp the sense in which we may take to ourselves the comforting thought that workingmen's unions will be agents of social peace. Competition, we are told, weighs upon the master quite as much as the man. This is, no doubt, true. The Brussels Democratic Congress thought they had found their way out of this difficulty, by proclaiming mixed syndicates of masters and workmen to be the most desirable form of union. Such an association of capital and labour would, we are quite willing to believe, be a very good thing, were it only in order to enable each side to see something of the point of view of the other. Whether one could expect them to so far agree as to fix the rate of wages by means of their discussion of the questions at issue, may be doubted. It is worthy of note that State intervention on this point found little favour in the Congress. We seem, however, to get some light on the real reason for this, when we are told that the Congress expected the syndicates, when established, to be stronger than the Law and to legislate, if one may use the apparent Hibernicism, with greater efficacy than Parliament, on the complex technical questions connected with labour. That the "sweating system," as it is called, should be condemned by the Congress is not to be wondered at, but it scarcely needed the apparatus of a Democratic League to ensure its condemnation. In connection with the question of wages, the Congress demanded for the workman, in addition to his wages, a share in the net profit of the undertaking. This demand, which to some has appeared revolutionary, seems to M. Van der Smissen to be purely Platonic. We are not sure that we grasp the sense in which he uses the epithet in this connection. The abolition of taxes on the necessaries of the workingman's life required the invention of a tax on somebody's luxuries, and this was found in the income arising from personal property and in stock-exchange operations. Gaming was condemned in all its forms. That, however, scarcely seems to us to be strictly a question for a Democratic Congress. RENT. W. H. MALLOCK. Condensed for THE LITERARY DIGEST from a Paper in The National Review, London, April. CONOMISTS have often remarked that, of all points in economic science, the nature of rent is the one most difficult to understand. It is certainly the one that is least generally understood; but it seems to me that the fact of its being so is due more to the dullness of the economists in explaining the mystery than to the dullness of the general public in apprehending their explanations. In order to explain the matter, let us consider agricultural rent, that is to say, a portion of the product or products derived from the use or tillage of a given tract of soil. Of such products let us take corn, which is the chief, and use it for simplicity's sake as represeuting all the rest, and, that being settled, let us go a step further, and, for simplicity's sake also, let us represent corn by bread, and imagine that loaves develop themselves in the soil like potatoes, when the soil is properly tilled, and are dug up ready for consumption. Rent, therefore, is a certain number of the loaves that we figure to ourselves as dug up from a given tract of soil. Now, everybody knows that all soils are not equally good. That there is good land and that there is poor land is a fact quite familiar even to people who, in all their lives, have never spent a day in the country. And this means that, continuing the above supposition, different fields of precisely the same size, cultivated by similar men with the same expenditure of labour, will yield to their respective cultivators a different number of loaves. Tom, Dick, and Harry, we will say, are three brothers, who have each inherited a field of twelve acres. They are all of them equally strong and equally industrious; they are in fact, as like one another as three Enfield rifles, and each works in his field for the same time every day, digs up as many loaves as he can, and every evening brings them home in a basket; but, when they come to compare the number which has been dug up by each, Tom always finds that he has fifteen loaves, Dick that he has twelve, and Harry that he has only nine; the reason being that in the field owned by Harry fewer loaves develop themselves than in the fields owned by Tom and Dick. Harry digs up fewer because there are fewer to dig up. Now, let us suppose that the three brothers have been accus tomed to precisely the same standard of living, and they consume, in supporting themselves, precisely the same amount of produce. Harry, with his nine loaves, has just enough to support him, according to the ideas and habits of his class. Dick and Tom, however, after consuming the number of loaves necessary for their support, have each a surplus. Every day Dick has three extra loaves and every day Tom has six. Το what, then, is the production of these extra loaves due? Is it due to land, or is it due to labour? Such a question answers itself. Let us now suppose that the State owns all the land in the kingdom, and that Tom, Dick, and Harry are all tenants of the State. It is obvious that the State would not and could not exact rent from Harry, for the whole of Harry's nine loaves would be required for his own subsistence. It is equally obvious that Tom, who has the better field allotted him, must pay for the privilege of occupying it, something that Harry does not pay; or else the State would be dealing very unequally by its citizens. In other words: As a mere matter of justice the State would be obliged to exact rent from both Tom and Dick; and, in order to put the two men on an equality, Tom's rent would have to be the number of loaves which rewarded his labour in excess of the number that rewarded Harry's; and Dick's rent would also have to be the number of loaves which rewarded his labour in excess of the number that rewarded Harry's. The reader will perceive that this doctrine of rent, though it is based on a most rigorous definition of what is produced by labour, interferes with no views we may entertain as to the moral rights of the labourer. If any one contends that the men who labour on the land, and who now pay away as tenants part of the produce in rent, ought by right to keep the whole for themselves, he is not asserting that already they do not keep all that is produced by their labour, but merely that they ought to own the land instead of renting it, and so keep all that is produced by the land as well. Every Radical who has ever thought about the matter at all, and every Socialist also, assents to the doctrine of rent which has just been explained, and uses it in all his arguments; and when Radicals ignore it, as they very often do, and speak of rent as a tax upon labour, instead of the portion of the product produced not by labour but by land-when, I say, Radicals speak like this, they do so, not because they are Radicals, or because they are extreme Radicals, but simply and solely because they are ignorant and stupid Radicals. The very existence, then, of rent and its obvious necessity— specially obvious if we suppose the State to be the landlordform a conclusive proof of the fact so forcibly denied by Mill, namely, that though two or more causes,—nature and human exertion-may be equally essential to the production of wealth, and that, in the absence of either of these, no wealth could be produced, we are yet able, under ordinary circumstances, to assign to each cause a definite portion of the wealth as its own special product. In this argument, I have taken account of land and human exertion only, leaving capital out of the question. I propose, hereafter, to consider capital, and to show that the principle on which it is credited with its share of product is precisely the same as that on which, as we have seen, land is credited with its share under the form of rent. in blood, whilst the lambs bleated by the altar and the darkbrowed Cain slunk away in the background between the trunks of the trees, ashamed, afraid, and already weighed down with remorse. But Cain now is never ashamed or afraid; as for remorse, Lombroso and the physiologists will prove that he could not have done other than he did, given his cranial formation; and who, ah, who will weep, in the nursery or out of it, for Abel? Much wonder is often expressed at the continuance, nay more, the increase of violent and brutal misdeeds, which disfigure so largely what is called (by itself) an age of civilization. But these crimes are a natural, pardonable, and logical result of our altered attitude to poor Abel. Since Cain is the favorite actor on our stage, it is entirely reasonable that his is the career which is most eagerly desired. We still sometimes hang him, garrote him, imprison him, or otherwise set our brand upon him, but we do it at all times reluctantly, and the time is not distant when we shall cease to do it at all. For of all strongly-marked features of modern life, sympathy with the aggressor instead of the aggrieved is the most conspicuous. Is this an innate revolt against the artificial bonds of modern life which renders modern society so inclined to take Cain to its bosom and fling quicklime contemptuously on the slain body of Abel? Or is it due to the tendency, so gravely marked in modern times, to side with the strongest, to disregard the law? Is it not, perhaps, beyond all, inspired by the essentially modern feeling that the man who has failed is imbecile beyond pity? And Abel, whatever form he takes, is, of course, an utter failure in the modern view of human existence. He is a per son who did not succeed in making his virtues pay. Of what use were a blameless career, a sympathetic character, a tender heart? He stood in the path of a stronger man. A divine judge and a primitive people might avenge him and weep for him; but the modern world kicks him into a neglected grave, whilst it buys photographs of Cain and sends him bouquets and bottles of brandy. It is needless to wonder why Cain is constantly reappearing in modern times; he is the popular character. He cannot appear in any costume or in any drama without obtaining more or less a large following, and, however hideous his crime, he will never be without his partisans and supporters. If ever insanity be accepted as a reason to spare a criminal, it should surely only be when such insanity is the long, incontestable, utterly distraught madness, the signs of which those who run can read. That insanity more or less proven by specialists should save such a brute as the youth who killed his mother, or the tramp who shot the young girls at Chiselhurst, is a great injury to the world at large. If the wire-drawing of specialists and the jargon of craniology be permitted to come into court, every assassin will escape. To allow the plea of irresponsibility is practically to inform Cain that the more atrocious, fantastic, and horrible be his crime, the more certain will physicians and physiologists come to his rescue and keep him clear of the scaffold. Whence comes this increasing tenderness for the murderer? True it is now and then varied by the blind fury of lynch-law, which is as unreasoning, although more natural in instinct. Neither bespeaks much intelligence in the human race at the end of the century, and neither is to be depended on for a moment. The saving clause, called circonstances atténuantes, originally intended as a philosophic and merciful provision for a few exceptional cases, has degenerated into a most mischievous protection of infamy, because poor Abel, i. e. the victim slain, is wholly forgotten. Cain lives, is vociferous by the logic of his counsel, sometimes noisy also by the thousand tongues of the newspapers, and becomes pitied and is protected; sometimes he even finds crowds to shout and weep for him as though he himself were the martyr. Even when a financial crime (if it be a great one, like the |