Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 12.pdf/121

 TJie Green Bag.

IOO

it surely is no more a success than our own elec tric chair. The truth is, no merciful execution seems yet to have been decided on by any nation under the sun. If the element of misericordia is to be introduced, then it becomes a farce when the prisoner is made aware of his near and men acing death. Again and again, hanging has been pronounced on the best of all authority (by those who have regained consciousness after the rope had wrought complete extinction of it) a wholly painless death. I know a famous physician who had himself " hanged " when a boy, and whose appointed watcher "cut him down " in a coma tose condition. He has assured me that his sensations were entirely agreeable. No; the Jap anese, with all their phenomenal "advancement," have not altered matters a whit. Everything lies in the culprit's anticipation of death. Let them eliminate that, if they choose; but until they do so capital punishment must remain with them, as with us in America, as indeed with every other enlightened country, no milder than it was a cen tury ago. — EDGAR FAWCETT, in Collier's Weekly.

MY head is like a title deed, Or abstract of the same; Wherein, my N, thou may'st read Thine own long-cherished name. Against thee I my suit have brought, I am thy plaintiff lover; And for the heart that thou hast caught, An action lies of Trover. Alas! upon me every day OhThe ! give heaviest me back costs myyou' heart, levy—: but nay, I feel I can't replevy. I 41 love thee with my latest breath, Alas! I cannot you shun : Till the hard hand of Sheriff Death T;ikes me in execution. Say, N, dearest, if you will Accept me as a lover. May thine affection file a bill, The secret to discover. Is it my income's small amount That leads to hesitation? Refer the question of account To Cupid's arbitration.

"THE government of the United States is the most cruel and rapacious creditor and the most dishonest debtor in this country. If a man has a claim against the government which needs the kindness of Congress, he had better destroy all evidence of the debt, so that future generations may not be distressed and made bankrupt in an effort to collect the claim." These are the words of the president of the American Bar Association, as reported by the daily press. They are undoubtedly true. The fact stated is what " Case and Comment," in August, 1898, called "a serious stain on the honor of the United States government." That stain is a shameful one. In this one particular of its treat ment of private claims against it our government must be deliberately declared to be one of the most dishonorable governments among men. Every lover of justice, every enlightened lover of his country, who is proud of its greatness, proud of its justice as administered by the courts, must suffer humiliation at the dishonor of his gov ernment in respect to those claims against it for which application must be made to Congress. The utter unfitness of Congress, on account of its bulk and other reasons, to dispose of these claims properly, is beyond question. The only adequate remedy is a general law to provide for something equivalent to a judicial investigation of all private claims. It is time that the moral sense of the nation was as much aroused on this subject as on that of French injustice. For the United States to stand before the world as a nation that will not do justice even to its own citizens when they have meritorious claims against it is a disgrace that should make us smart. Some member of Con gress, with the requisite ability to carry the meas ure through, can do his country a great service in •securing legislation whereby the government shall promptly and honestly dispose of all just claims against it. — Ceniral Law Journal.

INTERESTING GLEANINGS.

AT the recent annual meeting of the American Society for the Promotion of Agricultural Science. Prof. W. J. Beal reported concerning the germina tion of seeds, after long keeping, that experiments had been tried with various seeds five, ten, fifteen, and twenty years old, from which it appeared that seeds of a large number of important plants would