doubt as to the most effective method, arising
from the uncertainty involved in inferences from
facts capable of so many unknown influences as
crime, should be resolved in favor of the crimi
nal by substituting the lighter penalty. And I
would even go so far as to say that a small increase
in the probale number of murders when the state
goes out of the business, would be preferable to a
continuance of judicial slaughter houses and the
revolting scenes there enacted ; and this partly,
but only partly, (so far would I carry "senti
ment") because the greater sanctity of life that
would be possible and probable, even if not at
first felt, would be likely in the end to make an
actual' decrease in such crimes.
*Capttal Punishment. J. M. Buckley: Form June 1887.
[TO BE CONTINUED.]
THE MEDITATIONS OF A SPECTATOR
1 sat complacently upon the fence and gazed
abstractedly into the melee below me. There
was great confusion and noise among the crowd
of spectators about me but I heard them not. To
them this was merely a fight of Freshmen and
Sophomores; to me it was something grander, I
am a philosopher and in that quarreling mass Of
ignorant humanity I saw a likeness to what ?—the
beginning of the world. I am fond of making
such comparisons between the common place af•
fairs of men and the actions of nature ; and I was
proud that this conception of my imagination was
a grand one. Science teaches us that at the be
ginning of the work all was in a chaotic state;
surely here was chaos pure and simple. All the
colors of the rain-bow were blended together in
that confused mass; every stage of intellectual de
velopment was there represented, and in as mixed
and powerless a state as at the creation of man ;
all the languages under the sun, so it sounded,
were there so mingled as to make it seem like a
veritable babble; every variety of clothes that
could possibly have been worn by man, it appear.
ed, was to be found in that chaos. Sul ely, I pon •
THE FREE LANCE.
dered, it was out of just such an unorganized con
dition of matter that Earth was made. I • dont
think that the beginning of the world swore quite
as bad as this inordinate mass, but yet on the
whole it seemed' to inc that there was a wonderful
similarity and that my simile was a beautiful one.
I had just arrived at this conclusion and was con
gratulating myselfupon it, when a Freshman hit me
severely on the head with Eddie Pyne, as a result
of which when I picked myself up out of the mud
and gathered together my disorded senses I de
cided to take a safer post of observation. Mak
ing a wide circuit around the struggling classes,
I succeeded in gaining the other side of the road
and planted myself firmly by a hitching post.
The battle of the elements was waxing. fiercer;
coats, hats, shoes, mud, cobble stones and puddles
were thrown in every direction from the main
body by the wonderful power of centrifugal force,
and occasionally a battered, hill clothed fresh
man would drop from the clouds, exhausted at'
the feet of the onlookers. I gloried in it; such a
splendid chance for philosophic meditation 5 such
a beautiful opportunity to let loose one's fancies.
I was in raptures; and was again fast unrolling
my imagination, thinking myself at a safe distance
from the struggle, when a heavy foot caught me a
terrific crash in the chest and threw me backward
with such force as to pull the hitching post, to
which I clung, out by the roots. I looked up
just in time to see the mysterious author of my in
jury disappear in the fray. I may note here that
upon a diligent . search afterward I found that the
shoe of J. M. Brewer fit exactly in the hole in my
chest. Once more I collected my disordered
senses and took up my post of observation. Hav
ing despaired of getting out of the reach of .a bad
ly aimed combattant I trusted myself to the fates.
The crowd was slowly bein separated ; from
a single large struggling : mass of humanity, it
split off, or rather flew off, into various small knots
of fighting men, who, having now free use of their
limbs, began individually to scratch each other,
and with better judgment than was at first shown.