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are doing today. In our inordinate conceit we are sure that today we do the good things in a much more Godly manner than the men of yesterday. We are certain that when we are bad today we are ever so much more bad than the sinners of yesterday. We hear loud complaints that graft is rampant in all our governments and instances are pointed out as corruption never before heard of in the world. I wonder if we are as bad as the men of yesterday? There was old man Phocion. He lived in Athens when that city was the center of civilization and wealth, away back in the days of yesterday. Now Phocion was the town knocker. He went through the streets of Athens crying aloud that all the officials were corrupt. He said that the people at the City Hall were stealing the taxes. He claimed that the admirals in charge of the navy were embezzling the ropes and the sails; and finally, in his third edition, he went so far as to state that the priests at the temple of Delphi were getting away with part of the gold sent in as pious offerings to the god. This last outburst made the Athenians very peevish with old man Phocion, and so they indicted him for high treason, alleging that he was trying to subvert the government. He was tried before a court much like one that some people of today think would give complete justice. It was called the Dikastery and consisted, as I remember, of several hundred judges. Complete justice being done by this efficient court, Phocion was speedily condemned to death. Yesterday, as we know, a man was executed by being compelled to drink the hemlock. At the City Hall in Athens they had a very neat execution chamber, fitted up with couches, rugs and palms. I don't think they had an orchestra or any girls in to dance the tango, but of this I am not certain, for an execution yesterday was quite a merry function. It was the custom for the condemned man and his friends to meet at the execution chamber and after they had talked for a while, the executioner would bring the hemlock which the criminal drank and passed quietly away. On the appointed day Phocion and

his friends met and sat talking about how perfectly rotten things were in Athens and how after Phocion was gone no one would be left to protect the city from the cloud of grafting harpies that were devouring it. Presently in came the executioner with the bowl of hemlock in his hands. As he crossed the threshold he stumbled and dropped the bowl, spilling the hemlock on the floor. "Now, look at that pinheaded mutt," cried Phocion's friends, "here we have been waiting for a half an hour and this poor boob comes in and spills the hemlock so that we will have to wait another half hour while he goes out and brews another bowl." The executioner drew himself up with great dignity and said, "Gentlemen, you will have to excuse me. I am paid for the price of one execution. I do not furnish two executions for the price of one." "Well, for God's sake," exclaimed Phocion, "isn't this a hell of a state of affairs in Athens when a man can't die without being grafted for his own execution? Give this man two obols and let's have the thing over." I think it may now be granted that the motives of the men of yesterday were much the same as they are today.

Let us consider whether those motives led them to make the same laws yesterday that we make today, and we may at the same time determine whether those laws operated or failed to operate in the same manner that they do today.

In that blessed state of perfection which the laws have today attained, some wise legislator, with much trouble and toil, induced the passage of a statute providing that, when a criminal is convicted, the judge may, in his own discretion, parole the prisoner. Thus today is justice tempered with mercy and we hail the accomplishment of this end as one of the most choice fruits of our advancement.

Yesterday there was brought before the propraetor Dollabella, a woman accused of poisoning her husband, a crime not rare yesterday, but in the splendid perfection of our civilization utterly unheard of today. The accused con

fessed but alleged certain brutalities that did not amount to a justification in law.

"Hem!" said Dollabella, "you confess to what the law says is a crime. These brutalities you mention are not included in the criminal code as excuses for your murderous instincts. Still this is a very complicated and interesting case and I will refer it to the higher authorities."

The higher authorities considered long and doubtfully but finally ordered that a summons should be issued for the accused commanding her to appear and answer the charge one hundred years from that day.3

Yesterday this action worked out the same beneficent end that the law of today accomplishes. Today the unfortunate drops quietly back into the current of society and the waters of oblivion close over him, while the law balked of her prey, drops back into her den. Yesterday, when the hour for answering the summons struck, Dollabella was seated with the gods and the crime forgotten. Don't you think that the law worked out yesterday as it does today?

After much tribulation we have today passed a law fixing the price of a man's injury when he is destroyed or damaged by the carelessness or viciousness of another. Having done this we sit back complacently and call upon high heaven to witness with admiration the fruition of this most perfect flower of all the ages, crying aloud, "Look, the dawn of the millennium breaks." That is today. Yesterday (Aulus Gellius Attic Nights, Vol. III, p. 410) the law provided that any one who injured a citizen should at once pay him twenty-five pence as damages. In the forenoon of yesterday there lived in Rome a gay roisterer named Lucius Neratius. His father, a great merchant, had by continuous industry accumulated many millions of sersterces and, when death with outstretched finger beckoned to him, he passed away, happy in the confidence that he had accomplished something remarkable, and dying, left his fortune

3 Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights, Vol. 2, p. 347.

to his son. Lucius was puzzled how to spend the vast sums now at his control. He tried wine, women and song, but nothing seemed to deplete his coffers. At last, wearying of other pleasures, he sallied out into the streets of Rome, bidding his treasurer follow him with a bag of money. When he approached any one whose looks did not please him he would strike the unpleasant countenance of that unfortunate gentleman and at once order his treasurer to pay the statutory penalty of twenty-five pence. So having satisfied the law he went further unwhipt of justice.

Today the object of the law is the prevention of injury. Yesterday the law makers wanted to attain the same object. It failed yesterday. I wonder if it will fail today, when a man of sufficient millions undertakes to vent his spleen upon the unhappy features of some obnoxious traveler. In fact, limiting the damages, reminds one of the joke about the purpose for which railroad companies kept the axe in their coaches, and the result of the ancient law seems to lend point to the modern jest.

Today we have been working our alleged brains hard and fast to obtain by legislation the purity of elections and the culmination of our efforts has resulted in the laws concerning bribery. We compel every candidate to file, under what we are pleased to call his oath an itemized statement of all moneys spent in his canvass for office. We know how well it works. There are certain slight irregularities; but I am sure that, if you want to, you can go down to the public offices and, upon looking over the account of your favorite candidate, find out exactly how much two beers and a soda cost him on the morning of last election day. The only thing that will amaze one will be the increased cost of printing and the mounting price of car fare and motor hire. One may even cavil at some lumped items which you suspect may contain in their wombs the seeds of corruption; but still, take it all in all, every one is satisfied, there is no violence and we have reformed the ballot.

Yesterday under the same law they conducted the affair somewhat more impetuously, people being then of a rather hasty temper; but they accomplished the same result that we have attained. The authority on this question is very specific and conclusive. Plutarch in his life of Cato the Younger, Ed. A. H. Clough, Vol. 4, p. 414, says:

"The people were at that time extremely corrupted by the gifts of those who sought offices and most made a constant trade of selling their voices. Cato was eager utterly to root this corruption out of the commonwealth. He therefore persuaded the senate to make an order that those who were chosen into any office, though nobody accused them, should be obliged to come into the court and give account upon oath of their proceedings in their election. This was extremely obnoxious to those who stood for the offices and yet more to the vast numbers who took the bribes. Insomuch that one morning as Cato was going to the tribunal a great multitude of people flocked together and with loud cries and maledictions reviled him and threw stones at him."

So our gigantic modern intelligence enacts the same law that Cato enacted. Yesterday it failed through violence. Today it fails through craft. What is the matter with our brains? Why do we pick up the discarded, dirty garments of that old legislature and, wearing them as if they were the robes of an emperor, flaunt them in the sun before the face of the laughing gods?

Let us see why today we enact the same laws that failed yesterday.

There are two fundamental reasons for our deficiency. While these two reasons somewhat blend into each other, yet they are really distinct and separate. One is a misunderstanding as to the essential nature of law. The other is the lack of an education which would teach us why men did things yesterday; a failure to know what their motives were and what were the results of their actions.

But, stop! we are neglecting the first rule we laid down to govern ourselves in this discussion. We have been talking about laws in a free and easy manner, but we have failed to define our terms. Pause! Let us define the word, "Law." "Law is a rule of action prescribed by the su

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