be robbery, he is dragged from his guards (who make no very strenuous efforts to enforce the majesty of the law-which, indeed, in Indiana has very little majesty to enforce), and is hanged on the first tree, without any interference from the rest of the passengers. In fact, in a case that had recently occurred, of some pickpocket having been detected in the act, the passengers themselves stopped the train while they hung their man, afterwards proceeding on their journey with no other consequences than arriving at their destination an hour behind time.

The law extends but little protection to human life; each man must protect his own. Any man is free to take the life of his enemy-the cause is of little consequence; he has merely to seek a quarrel as a preliminary to shooting or stabbing him. He is aware that the law will not condemn him for murder. And though he should even be arrested, he is sure to be out of prison, on bail, in a very few days. He can then canvass his friends, and arrange for two or three fellow-murderers to serve on his jury, and under these auspices, his crime will be dealt with leniently. In a recent trial for murder, where the criminal was arraigned for a third offence of the kind, and there was a strong feeling that it might go hard with him, his friends

contrived that no less than five of the jurors should be men who had been guilty of murder themselves. This was, in point of fact, being "tried by his peers."

In the case of the horrible tragedy at Seymour, the sister of the men-a woman of vehement character-came down to see the mutilated forms of her brothers and husband. When in their presence she knelt down, and, with one hand on the corpse of her brother, and the other raised to heaven, she registered a most fearful oath of vengeance upon the perpetrators of the foul deed. She appealed to the Almighty to strike the light from her eyes, the sound from her lips, and the strength from her hand, if she failed to plant a dagger in the hearts of the murderers of her friends. The newspaper account remarked-" And she is the woman to do it, too." Such is the sensationalism of crime in America!

But a sensation can be worked up about anything. Men will do the wildest acts of enthusiasm, while a calmly generous action in everyday life is far to seek. So when Lincoln was assassinated, a sensation was got up about it, and worked up to a pitch of insanity, for political ends as though assassination had never been heard of before in the broad lands of America as though the crime of murder was

too appalling to be realized by these sensitive people without driving them absolutely wild and beside themselves with horror. Lincoln's blackened, hideous corpse the ugliest man when living, the most revolting to look upon when dead--was hauled from city to city in order to excite and rouse to frantic rage these excitable people, who, with a relish for the horrible unsurpassed, rushed in crowds to see him. The dead man was suddenly exalted into a saint and martyr, instead of being classed as a political victim, with the thousands of robbers who have suffered from the same cause; for it is as common in America for a man to be shot by his opponent in politics as by his rival in love or

war.

To satiate the desire for vengeance thus aroused amongst the people, a victim was wanted; and, alas for the American chivalry! they can find no better one than an old woman, whose only crime consisted in being the mother of one of the suspected conspirators, but whose complicity has not, to this day, been proved. This poor old body was literally dragged to the scaffold, uttering the most heart-rending shrieks for mercy and protestations of innocence, and using all her feeble strength to prevent the fatal noose from being adjusted. One of the most revolting spectacles civilization ever witnessed

under the name of justice then ensued, for brutality had to be used to compass the unfortunate victim's death! It is only just to say that such an act would never have been tolerated in America, save for the maddening excitement into which the people had been lashed by political schemers; for such a rigid exercise of justice as the hanging of a woman, no matter what her crime, is almost unknown.

ADISON, Indiana, is a small but beautiful town on the banks of the Ohio.

The hills, rising gracefully behind into an amphitheatre, close it in to the river, presenting, from the opposite side, a lovely prospect of wooded heights. When the Ohio was the only means of communication, Madison was a place of considerable importance in river commerce-principally in pork, which still forms. its chief item of trade. But the numerous railroads opened through the country in late years have greatly lessened the importance of the river-carriage; and a good site on the river is no longer so necessary to the importance of a town as formerly. Au reste, the Ohio is only thoroughly navigable during nine months of the year, and its shifting shoals make navigation difficult at all times, except during the rainy