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Show I!ZZZZZZZZZZ1 There is not much to be said for the institution of lynching; indeed, I deprecate and condemn the practice. You may lynch the wrong person, for a mob is never very English particular about evidence, and lynch law shows distrust nnd contempt for our ad- V 16W OI niirable judges and juries. But if ours '1 T fill j fl fi wcrc a ronz'c excitable, hysterical, law-3 law-3 less sort of people, apt to dispute the urn- pi re's decision, and "take the law," like n Br ANDREW LAND VlX f t'sllc11 l)orcolnill "in'0 tllcir own hands" (where it is always broken) it ; would not surpriso me if n few "motorists" (t ' were lynched. Not very far from the peaceful hostelry where these lines are written, 4wo men, as I am informed, were conversing together in the road after midnight. The weather was fine, the night was pleasant ; n motor came up, knocked them both over, injured them very severely, and went on its Avay rejoicing. It behaved like the Bussian licet when it fired on our fishing boats, and I am not awnre that the motor has yet been detected. -ir Thero nro countries in which this sort of behavior might provoke lynchings, of innooent people probably. The lynchings, again, might givo rise to more caution among drivers of motors. But "do not duck them, do not nail their cars to the pump," as the man said in the old story. There .is a pleasant owner of n motor in a new novel, "Mrs. Bailey's Debts," by Mr. Kddy. "What's a fivc-pound-note?" he asked. "I want to go fast, and I am ready to pay. 'Fine away,' I said to the bluebottle. 'I shall have u bottle of fizz to-night, just the same . . . When you're in a buzzer, you're cock of the walk, and whether you like it or not, you'vo got 'to scoot." As a five-pound fino is nothing to this detestable typo of rich cad, perhaps some other way of cutting the combs of such cocks of the walk may bo ultimately invented. But let us keep within the law. Do not let us .shoot at them, as a worthy magistrate once proposed. For my part, were it lawful, I could cheerfully shoot all persons who turn loose on the rural nights the yells of costcrmongcrs' songs by aid of gramophones these joys of the lively and unidyllic; But, like the author of "Murder as One of tho Fino Arts," "I am all for law and order and that kind of thing." |