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stuck in a quicksand. The water rose in the coach, to the horror of the registrar and other officers, who crept out of the windows and scrambled on the top behind the coach-box. They urged his lordship to do the same, but with great dignity and gravity he sat till the water rose to his lips, and then he was just able to exclaim, "I will follow your counsel if you can quote to me any precedent for a judge mounting on a coach-box." No "authority" could be produced, owing to the darkness of the night! (Text.)—, "Curiosities of Law and Lawyers."

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PUNCTILIOUSNESS IN LITTLE THINGS

The late Edmund Clarence Stedman told of his experiences as a clerk in the office of the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad:

Finding his cash short one day, to the extent of two cents, Stedman took the money out of his pocket and dropt it into the till. After he had left the employment of the company he met in the street one day the treasurer of the company, who asked him whether his cash account was right every time while he was with the company. When the treasurer's attention was called to the exception he exclaimed, "Confound you, Stedman, we have had the whole force of the office at work for weeks trying to find that two cents."

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PUNCTUALITY

A New York motorman is the subject of the following news item in a daily paper:

For the first time in thirty years Robert Willoughby failed to wake up this morning when his thirty clocks, simultaneously setting off a series of gongs, gave their customary alarms at six o'clock. He had died some time during the night of Bright's disease.

Willoughby was fifty-seven years old and had been employed as a motorman by the Third Avenue Elevated Railway. He was the most punctual employee in the service. No matter what the weather was, Willoughby was never late.

The secret of his punctuality came to light when his room was inspected to-day. Ranged round his bed were thirty clocks of different sizes and makes. All struck the same hour at the same time.

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Punishment—See.

Punishment Escaped—See.

Punishment Fitting Offense—See.

PUNISHMENT, FORMER SEVERITY OF

In the reign of Henry VIII, 72,000 thieves were hanged, being at the rate of 2,000 a year. In the reign of George III, twenty persons were executed on the same morning in London for stealing. In 1785, ninety-seven persons were executed in London for stealing from a shop to the value of five shillings or more. If the amount were less than five shillings the punishment was not capital.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century the punishment of death might be inflicted for more than two hundred crimes. These are some of the offenses that were punished with death: Picking a man's pocket, taking a rabbit from a warren, stealing five shillings or more from a shop, cutting down a tree, catching and stealing a fish, personating a Greenwich pensioner, stealing a sheep or horse, harboring an offender against the revenue acts.

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Punishment in China—See.

Punishment of Sinners—See.

PUNISHMENT, PROFITABLE

Oscar Wilde wrote:

I want to get to the point when I shall be able to say quite simply, and without affectation, that the two great turning-points in my life were when my father sent me to Oxford, and when society sent me to prison. I will not say that prison is the best thing that could have happened to me; for that phrase would savor of too great bitterness toward myself. I would sooner say or hear it said of me that I was so typical a child of my age that, in my perversity and for that perversity's sake, I turned the good things of my life to evil, and the evil things of my life to good.

And if I then am not ashamed of my punishment, as I hope not to be, I shall be able to think, and walk, and live with freedom.

In the very fact that people will recognize me wherever I go, and know all about my life, as far as its follies go, I can discern