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 The Lawyers Easy Chair. While once as fleet as highland deer, His tail extended in the rear Like rudder served his course to steer, Now there arose authentic fear His feet would prove extremely queer, And stagger round from far to near, Like pugilist hit on the ear, Corkscrew To view — Listen to my tale of woe! The jury swallowed every word, Nor deemed this theory absurd, The like of which was never heard Until this accident occurred; And not by novelty deterred, With promptitude the twelve concurred, And " Five and twenty pound " soon stirred The court-room's atmosphere in verd ict round And sound — Listen to my tale of woe!

WHITE CAP-ITAL PUNISHMENT. — When the writer of these lines was at Heidelberg two years ago, he and several of his companions, being desirous of visit ing one of the University Society houses, were recom mended to apply at the house of the "White Cap" corps, the most aristocratic of all. We did so apply, and were met by a handsome young count, with some scratches on the left side of his face, who informed us, with a trace of hauteur, that the request was un precedented, and that he did not feel authorized, in the absence of his comrades, to grant it. Our spokes man thereupon apologized, explaining that we were Americans, and having heard much of his corps were very desirous to see the house, and felt a deep disap pointment at our failure. " Ah! " replied the young count, " then you have heard of our society in Amer ica! " " Yes, indeed," was the reply, mingling a grim sense of humor with the pardonable dereliction from the exact line of truth; "the 'White Caps' are a household word in America! " At that magic touch the count bowed nearly to the ground, the doors flew open, and we were graciously conducted through the sacred precincts. If our conductor had understood the " true inwardness " of the expression, he prob ably would have felt less flattered, as his gallant and generous soul would have shrunk from a supposed likeness to the meanest, most cowardly, and most brutal organization that ever disgraced the soil of this free country. It must give every lover of social order real pleasure to observe that the people of the South have had all of it and its diabolical outrages that they can endure, and have at last successfuly invoked the arm of the law against it in Mississippi and Louis iana. This is much wiser than a resort to lynching to put down and punish lynching. The craven dis

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turbers of the peace do not appear to good advantage in the courts, but whine and cry at their punishment. In one case, it is recorded, the wife of one of them held up her young baby to the judge, and with tears asked him what was to become of them if the husband and father had to go to prison? The judge kindly took the child for a moment and soothed the mother, but sent the culprit up all the same. That was a pretty scene, — mingling mercy with justice. It might pertinently have been asked by the jud"e what had become of feeble women and young children, driven out in the inclement night from their blazing homes, their husbands and fathers cruelly tortured and banished, sometimes slain, by reckless and hard hearted neighbors. It would not prove a great inducement to the inhabitants of civilized Europe to visit the Columbian Exposition at Chicago, if they were informed of the fell doings of " White Caps" in the South and West of the country which is blowing her own horn at such a lusty pitch, and bragging and swaggering at such an intolerant rate about her "civilization"! "White Caps" have infested Indi ana and Illinois within a comparatively recent period, and our foreign friends might naturally feel a little timid lest they should break out in some dangerous gambols against the representatives of the hated des potisms of the East. There is considerable discussion in these days about the policy of the death penalty, but there probably will be no difference of opinion about the policy of White Cap-ital punishment.

THE " PURPOSE NOVEL." — We have the mis fortune to disagree with Mr. Marion Crawford, and his reviewer in this periodical in the May number (p 252). concerning the undesirability of a "purpose" in fictitious literature. Mr. Crawford says that nov els should be neither sermons nor lectures, and that if their design is other than to interest they become "inartistic." We might go so far with him as to agree that the purpose should not be glaring. But there are many great works of fiction in which there is an underlying moral purpose, for which they are none the worse. The great novels of Dickens are eminent examples of this. Are such works as Bleak House, Dombey and Son, Little Dorrit, Nicholas Nickleby, and Martin Chuzzlewit any the worse because they subordinately preach powerfully against the court of chancery, commercial pride of family, imprisonment for debt, and bad private schools, what Bishop Potter calls " the infinite swagger of Ameri can manners," and hypocrisy? Is there not in the one perfect chrysolite of American literature, "The Scarlet Letter," a tremendous lesson concern ing the misery of sin, the ugliness of revenge, and the beauty of repentance? In two eminent instances, " Uncle Tom's Cabin " and " Robert