tions. Another self! A new somebody! A kicking counterfeit, held fondly in his mother's arms, riding to Banbury Cross on his father's foot!

A Brother? What did it mean? There were no books to tell him; and if there had been, the poor child never knew a letter. There were no philosophers or metaphysicians in those days to explain the phenomenon. The earliest Beecher was not born; Darwin was still a lingering atom in some undreamed of, unorganized pseudo-protoplasm of a monkey. The child had no friends, not even a school-fellow. Adam's time was taken up with what modern conundrumists have called his express company; Eve had the baby to mind, and Cain was left alone to brood over the unfathomable. Think of the influence thus brought to bear upon the delicate, sensitive brain of that very select child. A mature intellect would have given way under a far less strain.

But Cain survived it. He became reconciled, we will say, to the little Abel. They played and shouted together as children do in our day, racing the fields at will, growing to be strong, brave little animals, fierce, impulsive, and aggressive-especially Cain. But how did they fare æsthetically-no academies, no Sunday-schools, no gymnasiums, nothing to direct and balance their young minds !

Their parents were plain people, caring little for society, we imagine, and anything but dressy in their tastes. There were no lectures in those days, remember; no concerts, no Young Men's Christian Associations to make life one long festivity-everything was at a dead level. Probably the only excitements Adam and Eve had were thrashing the children and making them "behave." Whatever sensation Adam may have made among the beasts of the field, the only public movement possible to his active-minded wife was to notify all mankind (i.e., little Cain and Abel) to look out, for Adam was coming! Naturally, Abel, being the baby, the last and therefore the best and dearest, was spared these thrashings and public excitements to a great extent; and so the burden of social responsibility fell upon poor little Cain. Who shall blame him, or wonder at the act, if now and then he indulged in a sly kick at Abel-Abel, the goody boy of the family, the "rest of the world," who would not on any account be as naughty and noisy as brother Cain?

Yet who of us can say that any such kick was administered? At that early stage of his existence, the controlling mind of Cain had not yet given way.

It is no light matter to be the first man in a world like this; and Cain certainly was preparing to hold that position. Adam, his father, was created for a purpose. Like Minerva, he sprang into life full grown ; therefore, though we may safely consider him as the first human creature, he certainly was not the first man. For how can one be a man who never was a child?

Here we have another argument in favor of Cain. Besides having no bad boys to pattern after, he was under the constant direction of his parents, who certainly, if only from an instinct of self-preservation, would have trained him never to be passionate or cruel, when in his right mind. To be sure they labored under a peculiar disadvantage. Herbert Spencer himself, coming into the world booted and spurred, with no childhood to look back upon, might have been at a loss how to manage the first boy. We must never forget that there was a time when instinct and reflex action had the start of the doctrine of precedent and law of consequences; when the original "I told you so!" had yet to be uttered. Even the warning example of Cain was denied to the moral advancing of this first boy.

Still the situation had its advantages. There were no fond uncles and aunts, no doting grand-parents to spoil the child and confound the best endeavors of Adam and Eve. Fortunately for the boy, poor Richard's Almanac was yet unwritten; George Washington's little hatchet was never brandished before his infant mind; and Casabianca had not yet struck his attitude on the burning deck. So young Cain was spared a host of discouraging influences. In short, there is every reason to believe that, in spite of depressing conditions and surroundings, he grew up to be at least a better man than his father, who never had any bringing up at all. That he did not kill Abel in his boyhood is proof enough of this. There was discipline somewhere.

And in the name of developed science and Christian charity why not, in consid ering subsequent events, make due allowance for whatever phrenological excesses the cranium of young Cain may have possessed? An intelligent father of to-day, figuratively speaking, can take his child's head by the forelock. He can detect what is within it, and counteract proclivities. If an ominous bump rise near his baby's ear, he is ready to check combativeness with "Mary had a little lamb," "Children, you should never let,” and other tender ditties. In a word, he may

take observations from the little mounts of character on his child's head, and so, if he be wise, direct the young life into safe and pleasant places. But Adam knew nothing of phrenology. Nor have we great reason to believe that, if he had known of it, he would have discreetly followed its indications. Children are not always cherubs. We all know how the dearest of our little ones sometimes become so 66 aggravating" as to upset our highest philosophies. Was Adam more than human? Say, rather, he was the fountainhead and source of human passion.

Again, both children were the victims of an abiding privation. They had the natural propensities of childhood. They had teeth, stomach, appetite,-all the conditions, we will say, of cholera infantum,-except the one thing for which they secretly yearned-green apples! These of course were not to be had in that house. They were not even allowed to be mentioned in the family. Not once in all their lonely childhood were those children comforted with apples. Think of the possibilities of inherited appetite, and then conceive of the effect of these years of unnatural privation !

Again, who shall question that at times the deepest and most mysterious gloom pervaded that household? Even if Adam and Eve did not confide in their children, their oldest boy must have suspected that something was wrong. What was it -the terrible something to be read, and yet not read, in the averted faces of that doomed pair? They evidently had seen better days. Where? Why? How? What had become of some vague inheritance that Cain felt was his by right? Morning, noon, and night, misty and terrible suspicions haunted his young mind. Night and noon and morning, the mystery revolved and revolved within him. Was this conducive to sanity?

Conceive of the effect of the animals seen in the children's daily walks! There were no well-ordered menagerie specimens then, with Barnum or Van Amburgh in the background as a foil against terror. Savage beasts glared and growled and roared at every turn. Whatever geologists may say to the contrary, we must insist that the antediluvian animals did not necessarily antedate Adam. Taking the mildest possible view of the case, the plesiosaurus, pterodactyl, mastodon and megatherium, in their native state, could not have been soothing objects of contemplation to the infant mind.

Well, the boys grew up. But how bleak their young manhood! No patent-leather

boots, no swallow-tails, no standing-collars, no billiards, no girls to woo, no fellows to flout! Nothing to do when the farm-work was over and the sheep in for the night but to look into each other's untrimmed faces with a mute "Confounded dull!" more terrible than raving.

Fathers of to-day, would your own children pass unscathed through such an existence as this? Your little Abels might stand it, but how about your little Cains? Would they not "put a head" on somebody? Would they not become, if not stark, staring mad, at least non compos mentis? Gentlemen of the jury, these considerations are not to be lightly passed by.

In judging of Cain, look at the situation. On the one hand, a terrible family mystery, no schools, no churches, no lectures, no society, no amusements, no apples! On the other hand, the whole burden of humanity borne for the first time; paternal discipline; undue phrenological developments; monotonous employment; antediluvian monsters; antediluvian parents, and an antediluvian good brother in whose mouth butter would have remained intact for ages.

Undoubtedly that brother had an exasperating smile. He was happy because he was virtuous. He had a way of forgiving and forgetting that for a time would deprive the offender of reason itself; above all, he had a cool, collected manner of his own, added to a chronic desire to be an angel. His offerings always fulfilled the conditions. His fires needed only to be lighted, and the smoke was sure to ascend with a satisfied, confident curl far into the sky.

Cain's, on the contrary, refused to burn. We can see it all. The smoke struggled and flopped. It crept along the ground, and, clinging to his feet, wound about him like a serpent. It grew black and angry, shot sideways into his eyes, blinding and strangling

him

The

And there stood Abel beside his pile, radiant, satisfied, wanting to be an angel! It was but the work of a moment. pent-up, disorganizing influences of a life-time found vent in one wild moment of emotional insanity. Abel was no more!

Why dwell upon the tragedy? The world is familiar with its sickening details. We shall not repeat them here, nor shall we question the justice of the punishment that came to Cain,-the remorse, the desolation, the sense of being a fugitive and a vagabond on the face of the earth. He had killed his brother, and the penalty must be paid. Sane

or insane, a terrible retribution must have overtaken him. But how about his guilt? Would it have been the same in either case? Are hereditary organism, temperamental excitability, emotional phrensy not to be considered?

No, a thousand times NO! What competent juror" would acquiesce in such a proposition !

Friends, the time has come when this case must be taken up. Its mighty issues can no longer be set aside. If Cain was not sane at the moment of the killing, the stain of murder must be wiped from his brow now and forever. This tardy justice may at least be done him. Our children and our children's children must be taught to speak of Cain the man-slaughterer; Cain the mentally-excitable; Cain the peculiarly-circumstanced. But Cain the murderer? Never!

A man's own testimony shall not convict or acquit him. But are we not to take into account, as indicative of his state of mind, actions and declarations coincident with the commission of the crime alleged against him? If at or about the time of the fatal deed, there was positive evidence of incoherencewhat then? Witness the last recorded words

of Cain :

EVERY ONE THAT FINDETH ME SHALL SLAY ME!

Is this the utterance of a sane mind? Every one that findeth me shall slay me? Gentlemen! Cain, at this point, was not only crazy-he was the craziest man that ever existed! No ordinary lunatic, however preposterous his terrors, expects to be killed more than once. But to this poor creature retribution suddenly assumed a hydra-headed form. His distracted brain, unconscious that Adam was the only other man in the wide world, instantly created an immense population. He saw himself falling again and again by the strokes of successive assassins, even as Abel had fallen under his hand. His first dazed glimpse of death expanded and intensified into a horror never since conceived by mind of man. His happiness overthrown; his reason a wreck a prey to fears that stretched before him forever, with no possible hope of final destruction,--the only consolation is that he could not foreknow the merciless verdict of posterity. He did not recognize in himself The First Murderer. Rather than dream of such ignominy as this, was it not better that he should cry in his ravings: Every one that findeth me shall slay me!

We leave the question to the intelligence and the justice of this faithful and enlightened century.

Thou Shalt Kill.

MURDER as a fine art has been written of by one of the masters of the English tongue, and now we are advanced so much upon that as to talk about it as a duty.

Professor Francis W. Newman has a letter in a late number of The Spectator, in which he speaks calmly, and with apparent earnestness, of the duty both of murder and suicide, under certain conditions. He says he has reason to believe that a friend of his, an illness lingering and hopeless, withdrew himself somewhat prematurely from life under a sense of duty. He has asked the opinions of many people on the subject, and they think a painful, useless and hopeless life ought to be ended." By emphasizing the word "ought," the writer doubtless intends to convey the idea of a duty resting somewhere. So much for the question of suicide. In regard to killing others, supposes two cases-one in which the member of a party passing through a wilderness breaks down, and must be left behind in order that the others may save their lives, and begs to be killed at once, in order to save him from greater and prolonged suffering; and

he

another in which a sick old life ruins the young life that attends it.

In both these cases there comes the duty of kill. ing. At least we infer this, for there would be no significance in the statement of the cases without this conclusion. Under the musical designation of “Euthanasia," Prof. Newman speaks of this sort of murder as an act that ought to be publicly approved and legalized under certain conditions. He thinks, too, that, properly restricted, the privilege of murder would not be liable to abuse.

The mode of operation would be something like this, we suppose: An old man, having worn out his life in the service of his children, comes at last to the point where they can do him more good than he can do them. The attention he needs brings to them wearisome days and nights of watching. It becomes inconvenient that the old fellow live any longer: he doesn't have a very good time himself, he does not expect to have any better, and his children and friends regard him as an intolerable bore, and wish that he were dead and out of the way. Under these circumstances, the parties apply to a magistrate for liberty

to put him out of the way. A physician certifies that he is hopelessly diseased, his own consent is in some way obtained (and as he would be quite apt to be muddled by medicine it ought not to be a difficult thing to get that), the friends are all agreed, and an extra dose of chloroform closes the scene and relieves them, casting them at once into mourning, and into the sad and solemn duties of dividing such property as their much-lamented relative may have left behind him. In case the invalid were a mother-in-law, or an incompatible wife or husband, or an unwelcome baby, or a maiden aunt who had outlived her usefulness, or a family servant who lagged superfluous on the stage, and could not be sent to the poor-house without injuring the reputation of those to whom he had given the services of a faithful life, the beauty of this arrangement would become still more obvious. There is not, of course, the smallest opportunity for abuse !

We should really like to see Prof. Newman. Our present impression is that, as an old man, he would not pay very largely for care, and that his doctrines could be tried upon himself with very little danger to society, and not much loss to his immediate family and social circle.

But Prof. Newman is a learned man, and so is Mr. Tollemache, who writes on the same side of this same subject with him; and we suppose they regard themselves as deserving dignified treatment. Very well; let us try to formulate the principle involved in their doctrines and declarations. When a life becomes exceedingly or hopelessly inconvenient to its owner or to society, it ought to be destroyed. This seems to us a fair statement of the principle involved in Professor Newman's declarations concerning his supposed cases, and, if it be allowed to stand as such, we see at once to what awful absurdities it will lead us. It involves the destruction of millions of human beings in embryo, of a large class of children born into the world with diseased souls and bodies, of paupers by the hundred thousand, of all the idiots living, of half the insane, of all the bed-ridden and the helpless, and of all the beggars that swarm like vermin throughout the old world. On this principle, we could reduce the breadeaters of the world by many millions in a single day, and by recognizing the principle in law--as these philosophers suggest--we should so obliterate from the mind of the brutal masses the idea of the sacredness of human life, that it would be no longer safe anywhere. Recognize in law the principle that hopeless inconvenience in life justifies death, and the suicidal and murderous impulses hold the license of the widest havoc in their hands.

Such a doctrine as this of Prof. Newman could only have originated in a mind very poorly furnished with Christian motives. Life is not the best thing in existence. Honor is better than life. Filial gratitude is better than life. Heroic endurance, either of suffering or of ministry to suffering, is better than life. The preservation of the liberties of a country is cheap ly purchased by life. The dying lips of thousands of

heroes have declared that death for one's country is sweet. It is better that the virtues of fortitude and patience and patriotism and self-devotion find development and illustration than that bodily comfort be secured, or even life prolonged. The Saviour of men came to a world about as hopelessly diseased as it could be, in body and soul. We cannot tell what Prof. Newman would have counseled under the circumstances, but it would have seemed consistent for him to say, "Let the whole thing burn, and get it out of the way." The devil was around in those days, and indulged himself in giving advice which was very properly and peremptorily declined; and Prof. Newman would not have fared better, for He who came to seek and save that which was lost gave himself for it. He was young, powerful, divine; but there were certain things that he recognized as better than the continuance of his mortal life, and he gave that life for them.

If man is nothing but an animal, if this life is all there is of his existence, and the question simply concerns the amount of comfort to be got out of it in this transient world, why, let him do as he likes with himself and his friends; but he who regards the present scene as only the foreground of an infinite spiritual future, through which, if one tread faithfully the prescribed passages of pain as well as pleasure, he shall find himself in higher pathways, as a consequence, at the last, we say he will take life whether it be convenient or inconvenient, and hold it as the gift of God, inalienable by any reason of infirmity or suffering, or hopeless disease, or cost to other life through neces sary ministry. The doctrines of Prof. Newman and Mr. Tollemache are unchristian doctrines. They carry us back into barbarism-back into the darkness in which children killed parents that became a burden to them, and mothers strangled infants that could only inherit their own sufferings. It is an infamous criticism of the divine wisdom, an insult to Providence, an assault upon the safeguards of society, and a reflection upon human nature and human destiny from which all Christian manhood recoils as from the touch of a serpent.

Mitigating Circumstances.

AMONG the various reasons assigned by those interested in procuring the commutation of the sentence pronounced upon a convicted murderer in this city, for demanding the executive clemency, we did not see one which was really stronger than any other. It is strange that this was overlooked by both the parties opposing each other in this movement. In Dr. Tyng's letter to the Governor, we find the statement that Foster was drunk when he inflicted the fatal blow upon his victim. Granting that this was the casefor there is no doubt of it-the question arises as to the responsibility for this man's drunkenness. To a great and criminal extent the responsibility undoubtedly rested upon him: but has it occurred to this community, which so loudly calls for protection against

murderous ruffianism, that it has consented to the existence of those conditions which all history has proved make murderous ruffianism certain ? There is no reasonable doubt that every murderer now confined in the Tombs committed his crime under the direct or indirect influence of alcoholic drinks. Either under the immediate spur of the maddening poison, or through the brutality engendered by its habitual use, the murderous impulse was born. It is reasonably doubtful whether one of these criminals would have become a criminal if whisky had been beyond his reach. Does any one doubt this? Let him go to the cells and inquire. If the answer he gets is different from what we suggest, then the cases he finds will be strangely exceptional.

Now, who is to blame for establishing and maintaining all the conditions of danger to human life through murder? Why, the very community that complains of the danger, and calls for the execution of the murderers. So long as rum is sold at every street corner, with the license of the popular vote, men will drink, themselves into brutality, and a percentage of those thus debasing themselves will commit murder. The sun is not more certain to rise in the morning than this event is to take place under these conditions. Fatal appetites are bred under this license. Diseased stomachs and brains are produced under it by the thousand. Wills are broken down, and become useless for all purposes of self-restraint. And all this is done, let it be remembered, with the consent of the community, for a certain price in money, which the community appropriates as a revenue. Then, when this license produces its legitimate results-results that always attend such license, and could have been distinctly foreseen in the light of experience—the community lifts its hands in holy horror, and clamors for the blood of the murderer in order to secure its own safety. It never thinks of drying up the fountain. It is easier to hang a man than shut up a grog-shop. It is easier to dry up a life than a revenue. It is easier to choke a prisoner than a politician.

:

We are not pleading for any murderer's life. We have signed no petition for any man's pardon, but we have this to say that so long as the sources of drunkenness are kept open, the killing of a murderer will have very little effect in staying the hand of murder, and securing the safety of human life. If this is what we are after in seeking the execution of the extreme penalty of the law, our object will not be reached. We have this further to say, that a community knowing that the traffic in alcoholic liquors is sure to produce murderers, and to render society unsafe, becomes virtually an accomplice before the fact of murder, and, therefore, responsible for all the dangers to itself that lie in the murderous impulse.

We declare, then, without any qualification, that the attitude of the community of the city of New York toward the liquor traffic, is a mitigating circumstance in the case of nearly every murder committed in it, Further, it is a mitigating circumstance in the

case of nearly every brutal assault, in every case of drunkenness, and in half the other crimes that are committed. It is through the poverty and the shamelessness and immorality that come from drunkenness that our beggars and thieves are produced. If we could wipe out of existence all the crimes and woes of our city directly traceable to the almost unrestricted traffic in alcoholic stimulants to-day, the city would not know itself to-morrow. The surprise experienced by Mr. Squeers at finding himself so respectable would be more than matched by the surprise of a national metropolis at finding itself redeemed to virtue and personal safety.

And now what will the community do about it? Nothing. The wine-bibbers among our first families will sip at the delicious beverage among themselves, feed it to their young men, and nurse them into murderers and debauchees, and vote for the license of a traffic on which they depend for their choicest luxuries. Goodish men will partake of it, for their stomach's sake and for their often infirmities. The Frenchman will destroy his bottle of Bordeaux every day; the German will guzzle the lager that swells him into a tight-skinned, disgusting barrel; and the whisky-drinker, under the license that all these men claim for themselves, will poison himself, body and soul, and descend into a grave that kindly covers his shame, or into crime and pauperism that endanger the property and life of the city, or sap its prosperity. In the mean time the ruffian or the murderer, acting under the influence of his maddening draughts, will maim and kill, and the very men who helped him to the conditions sure to develop the devil in him will clamor for his life.

In the mean time, also, it will comfort itself by the declaration that SCRIBNER'S MONTHLY is very extreme in its views concerning the temperance question.

Cruelty to Men and Women.

We need in New York a society for the prevention of cruelty to men and women. The officers of the law have proved themselves to be inefficient for this purpose, and we need some men, acting for a powerful association, to do for men, women, and children precisely what Mr. Bergh is doing for animals. Children are over-worked, or are put to work at too ten. der an age; landlords are mercenary and compel poor tenants to live in buildings that are unfit for human residence; employers of dependent women refuse fair payment for work, and leave them without redress; women are insulted in omnibuses and horse-cars and by-places, and have no protection. Men are beset by thieves in broad daylight, and robbed and maltreated. We know of women who have ridden past a dozen blocks in a public conveyance, with a husband on one side of them and a villain on the other, submitting to insults from the latter all the way, rather than endanger the life of the former by complaint. It has come to this in New York, that women who are sup