something that means something, that is of some practical value as well as being beautiful, and that would be a far more fitting memorial than the perfectly useless, hackneyed, tiresome imitation Greek temple they propose? Washington, D. C.

F. W. FITZPATRICK.

THE INJUSTICE OF AMERICAN JUSTICE For some years I have been reading with great interest your editorials variously styled "The Injustice of American Justice,' "The Law's Delays," "The Denial of Justice," and other like titles, and I have been impressed with the effort, as I believe, on your part to treat these subjects fairly, and to present to the reading public the defects in our system of admin-. istering the law, to the end that such defects may be remedied. Nearly thirty years of active service, both as a practicing lawyer and a trial judge, has convinced me of the great opportunity for substantial improvement in our administration of the law; and while I fully realize this, I realize, too, that many of the things that are spoken and written touching this subject are unfair, unjust, and in many cases not true. In your issue of February 10 of this year appears an editorial entitled "The Sluggishness of Justice," and the object of this communication is to suggest to you what is deemed to be the unfairness of this editorial-unfair more in what is left unsaid than in what is really written. You state to the reading public that just lately a young man was executed in your State for a murder which he committed March 24, 1910; that he was tried and convicted within thirty-four days after the commission of the crime, and yet twenty-one months elapsed between his conviction and his execution. There you stop, leaving the reader to conclude that all of this delay was properly chargeable to the manner in which justice is administered by the courts of this country. It would indeed be interesting, as it would be fair, had you gone a little further and advised the public of the occasion of the delay-how much time is given a defendant by the laws of your State within which to perfect his appeal; how many times, and for what lengths of time, did the Executive stay execution, and what other delays took place in that case-delays over which the courts had no control, and with which they had nothing to do. I am not familiar with the criminal practice in the State of New York, but venture the suggestion that the delay of which you speak was occasioned by the defendant's availing himself of the time given to him, as a matter of right, by legislative enactment, to prepare his case for the criminal Court of Appeals, and, no doubt, some of such time was occasioned by appeals for clemency to the Executive.

I have in mind two cases with which I was connected that illustrate more fully the point I am trying to make. In January, 1907, a murder

was committed in this State. One full year elapsed before the sheriff was convinced that he had sufficient evidence to warrant him in causing the arrest of the defendants. The arrest was made in January, 1908, and the defendants, two in number, were brought to trial in April of that year, April being the earliest possible moment fixed by the law at which the defendants could be brought to trial. They were tried separately (a right given them by the people), and the trial of each consumed ten days. They were both convicted, and in July, 1908, were both sentenced to life imprisonment in the penitentiary. But now comes in the delay.

The people of our State, by legislative enactment, have said that such defendants have two full years in which to file their appeal in the Supreme Court. This time these two defendants took to the full limit, notwithstanding the fact that the record in both cases could have been prepared inside of sixty days after the conviction. Two full years elapsed, the entire time given by the people to have the appeal filed in the Supreme Court. Having been filed in July, they were set, at the next session of that Court, which convened in September, 1910, for hearing in January, 1911. A continuance was granted because of the illness of counsel, and on July 7, 1911, the decision of the trial court was affirmed and the causes ended. The newspapers and other publications point to these cases as examples of the law's delays, or the delay of justice as administered by the courts, and yet the trial court disposed of them within sixty days, and the Supreme Court passed upon them within thirty days after they were submitted to that Court, but three and a half years elapsed from the time of the arrest until the cases were finally determined. In these cases the delay was occasioned in large measure by the defendants availing themselves of the time given them as a matter of right by the people.

I believe no one realizes more fully than do those who have the administration of justice in charge the defects in legal procedure and the necessity of having such defects corrected. You inquire why are these defects not corrected? There may be many reasons, but one potent reason I have observed during the last quarter of a century is this: that too frequently it occurs that the dominating personages in the Legislature of our State are men who are engaged, for the most part, in the defense of criminals, and hence are not slow to crystallize into legislative enactment the many things that encumber and impede the trial of criminal C. A. SMART, Judge District Court, Franklin County, Kansas. [Nothing that we have said should be construed as an intimation that the law's delay is due to the dilatoriness of judges. The fault is deeper. It is in our laws and procedure.-THE EDITORS.]

cases.

The New York Central Railroad is planning to utilize the space above its terminal tracks in New York City by erecting hotels and office buildings which will, it is expected, pay interest on the entire cost of the vast terminal improvements. The hotels will appeal to the traveler because of their accessibility, and the great office buildings are expected to house many business men who now have to travel downtown, but who would welcome a business location that would bring trains for their homes or for almost any part of the country directly to their office doors.

A writer in the "Christian Register" tells of a visit by Booker Washington to Florida, and of the enthusiasm with which the colored educator is received by those of his race who have longed to meet him and who see him for the first time. "I saw," he says, one old man cling with both hands to Dr. Washington's right hand, and, with tears in his eyes, exclaim again and again, 'I'ze takin' hol' o' Booker Washin'ton's han', I sho' is !'"

The Japanese seem to be "keeping up." The guns on their new cruiser, the Kongo, now building,. are to be the heaviest yet mounted on any warship, surpassing even those of the British battleship Lion. Each of the Kongo's eight guns will weigh eighty-five tons, and will fire a shell weighing 1,869 pounds.

An item that ought to please the Peace Societies appeared the other day in the New York City papers, to the effect that hundreds of revolvers, dirks, stilettoes, and other deadly weapons, removed from dangerous citizens by the police under the provisions of the Sullivan Law, were taken down the bay and sunk to the bottom of the sea. A step toward universal disarmament.

An unnamed benefactor has given $2,500,000 to the Boston Institute of Technology. The donation is to be used for the erection of new buildings or a new site.

The bandit business has its risks, even in the Southwest, where a sparse population and magnificent distances have sometimes made it easy for train robbers to escape with their booty. A courageous express messenger recently killed two of these desperadoes while they were looting a Texas train, and saved the company's and passengers' property. When business gets as bad as this, the surviving "gun men " of Texas might as well look for honest jobs.

A new record for ski jumping was made last month in Norway by an American, Oscar Gunderson, of Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, who jumped the extraordinary distance of 163 feet. American humorists, in hitting off the Scandinavian way of pronouncing the letter j, must have had this feat in mind when they coined the phrase, "Yiminy, what a yump!"

A bronze statue of Horace Greeley was placed on view at the Metropolitan Life Insurance Building in New York City a few days ago. Mr. William Ordway Partridge, the sculptor, has presented Greeley as the prophet and reformer rather than as the philanthropist, emphasizing the rugged strength rather than the geniality of his countenance. The statue

will be erected at Chappaqua, New York, near the old Greeley farm, in June.

German rivalry has occasioned some perturbation in England, but it has been left to France to administer a body-blow to English pride at its most sensitive point. French boxers have won a victory over English devotees of the manly art! The tradition that only the Anglo-Saxon knows how to use his fists has been rudely shattered by recent contests in France, in which-mark the names!-Georges Charpentier defeated Jim Sullivan, "the pride of Bermondsey," and "Digger" Stanley met his match in Monsieur Poesy!

The Pope has indicated his opposition to dueling by accepting the resignation of Count Pecci, nephew of the late Pope Leo XIII, from command of the Palatine Guard of Honor. Count Pecci had been involved in a dueling affair.

A mass-meeting was held in New York City last week to urge the passing of an ordinance requiring the placing on tenement-houses, saloons, theaters, and hotels of a plate bearing the name and address of the owner. The object of this "little tin plate is to "make the owner of a building take a healthy interest in his property," especially if it is being used for socially objectionable purposes.

China is modernizing itself so rapidly that it is in danger of losing its picturesqueness. The "North China Daily News" reports that the ancient walls of Shanghai, Hangchow, Canton, and other cities are to be demolished. And yet some European walled cities-such as Chester in England, Carcassonne in France, Toledo in Spain-regard their walls as their most treasured possession, incontestably linking them with the heroic age.

Can a woman be a successful " magician"? A contemporary wizard says that she can, and that in London there are many society women who have taken a course in wizardry as a means of becoming proficient in some kind of "parlor trick" by which to entertain company. It does seem, though, that a magician without coat-sleeves to pull back, as a preliminary to doing his marvels, would be fatally deficient in paraphernalia.

Over the door-posts of a fraternity club-house in the Middle West, says a writer in the "Century," is the inscription, "Thou shalt not loaf;" and the quoter of the sentiment commends it as especially applicable to those college men who look upon fraternity privileges as inviting them to "inconsequent and foolish play, the dissipations of social events, and the autocracy of athletics." He says, however, that there is a plain tendency among the members of the fraternities to face the dangers as well as to enjoy the advantages of such societies.

Americans who can keep only one servant, and who often cannot keep that one very long, sometimes sigh for the supposed domestic tranquillity of the Old World-and yet here is a paragraph in the London "Times" saying that a certain Marquis was summoned to a London police court for "keeping four male servants without having licenses," and fined forty shillings, with costs. Life is not without its troubles even for Marquises with several serv

ants.

11⁄2 cups sugar

3/4 cup milk

teaspoon soda

Light Part

1⁄2 cup Crisco; add salt

4 eggs (white only)

21⁄2 cups flour

1 teaspoon vanilla

A shortening richer than butter!. You will

think that such a product is impossible until you use Crisco where you now use butter. For example, use it in Marble Cake, which requires a cup of butter. The best creamery butter that you can secure is nearly one-fifth water, whereas Crisco is all shortening. There being no moisture in Crisco to dry out, Marble Cake made with it may be kept twice as long without loss of its original delicate flavor. You can secure this fine flavor at every season of the year, for Crisco never varies. You can realize that this is a decided improvement over cooking butter which does vary both in flavor, in color and in richness during the different seasons. Every package of Crisco

is just as rich as your first one and remains so, for it never gets strong as cooking butter does.

Use this recipe for Crisco Marble Cake. You will find that Crisco makes the white part equal to angel food in whiteness, and gives both the light and dark parts a fine, soft texture and a richer flavor than you have ever been able to secure before. You will find that it gives actually better results than butter at half the cost.

LYMAN ABBOTT, Editor-in-Chief

THE PACKERS' ACQUITTAL

The ten meat-packers who have been under criminal charges for the violation of the AntiTrust Law have been acquitted. The proceedings began ten years ago. In the course of these extended criminal proceedings the counsel for the packers have used a great many expedients to find some loophole in the law or in technical procedure through which the accused men might escape. They were checked at every point, and finally the case came to trial before a jury in Chicago. It was generally expected that the result would be a conviction, although that would not necessarily have meant the end of the proceedings. To the surprise of the Government representatives at least, the verdict was one of acquittal. There immediately followed a sharp rise in the price of meats. It is to be remembered that this failure to convict under the criminal provisions of the Anti-Trust Law is not due to the lawyers or to the judges, but to the jury. Those who are crying out for dealing with the trusts by criminal proceedings should have that fact impressed upon their minds. Here is a case of criminal proceedings ten years long, and the outcome is an acquittal by a jury. If anything ought to impress an even moderately intelligent mind with the uselessness of trying to solve the trust question by criminal lawsuits, it should be this case of the packers at Chicago. In this matter the Government cannot be said to have been in any respect derelict. The case was prosecuted with all the skill that the Government could command. The Federal Government, from the time Attorney-General Knox instituted proceedings till this outcome, has pursued exactly the course it ought to have pursued. There is no indication that any other similar case would be more likely to be successful. A method that requires ten years to deal with a specific instance and then flattens out in this fashion is not a method that promises any results in dealing with a great problem. The

.

whole country now ought to turn its attention to dealing with the trust question in a rational way by firm, constant, direct, immediate control through an administrative board.

STATE COVENTIONS

AND PRIMARIES

23

Republican State conventions have just been held in Colorado and Indiana, and Democratic conventions in Indiana and Kansas. The Republican results in Colorado and Indiana were favorable to President Taft's candidacy. The Democratic results in Indiana indicated Governor Marshall, of that State, as a "favorite son." In Kansas Speaker Clark was favored. But the most conspicuous of political events last week was the primary in New York State, not so much because of the President's victory as because of the confusion in New York County, largely due to the fact that in a substantial fraction of the election districts of New York City there was no primary election at all because no ballots were delivered to the polling-places. In more than one district unofficial ballots were prepared and voted, and these may be held to be legal on the ground that a voter cannot be deprived of the franchise by a failure of the public machinery, if he can find a remedy for himself. But when at least four hundred out of the 1,699 election districts in Greater New York were lacking in something—either ballots, tally sheets, or election officials-there is reason for such a telegram as Judge Duell, the Roosevelt manager, sent to Governor Dix :

The official ballots in many election districts were not delivered at all, and in even more numerous instances were delivered shortly prior to the close of the polls. The unexampled length of fourteen feet and the complexity of the ballot in New York County make the provision of the election law for a "substitution of informal ballots in the absence of the official ballots jook like conscious irony. The fact that where official ballots were not supplied no copy of the official ballots containing the names to be voted for were at the polling-places made it