languages. The officer dictated to Hans a passage in modern Greek, but, as this lan guage was unknown to the examiné, he was condemned to the pains and penalties enforceable against a prohibited immigrant. Hans claimed to be a German subject, and he offered to submit himself to any test in the German, French, or English languages. Notwithstanding his offer, the magistrate, being unable to order a second test, was compelled to administer the law as written, and committed him, to prison. This seems a rather severe punishment for not knowing modern Greek! However, the severity of the application of the above statutory pro vision roused public opinion against it, and, after the public press and German Consul, not to mention the inevitable solicitor for the person punished, had joined in protest, the Federal Government ordered the release of Hans in view of having him deported from Australia under Sects. 7 and 8 of the above-mentioned act. Meanwhile, an appli cation for a rule нш for a writ of habeas corpus had been granted, but, when the mo tion to make it absolute came for hearing, the application was dismissed, as Hans was at liberty. Now that he is at liberty legally, within the bounds of the Commonwealth, it appears that he cannot be dealt with as a prohibited immigrant. He refuses to leave Australia, and so he places the onus of the next move on the Federal Government. Owing to the manner in which public opin ion has been expressed, the Federal Attor ney-General has explained that the reason Greek had been used as an educational test was to keep Hans Max out of our white Australia, as he was the son of a German father and an Egyptian mother, and so a colored person, and likely to cause a per manent blot on the whiteness of Australia. Why were not our politicians honest in the beginning and in a straightforward manner place the ban on color, not spelling? The form of the legislation under which Hans Max has been persecuted is only a subter fuge, easily understood by the manner of its enforcement, and now put beyond doubt by
the positive statement of the Attornev-General. IN an interesting address on "Suicide and the Law," delivered recently by Wilbur Larremore before the New York Bar Asso ciation, printed in the March number of the Harvard Laiv Review, the author says: Cato the Younger, who is probably the most illustrious of suicides, upon the eve of his act, discoursed with much vehemence in justification of the right "to set himself at liberty." Cato's view has been assumed as self-evidently 'true by all nations and tribes that have not received a strong influence from Christianity. . . . Undoubtedly the logic of the situation is with Cato and the pagans to whom suicide itself never suggested any idea of turpitude, it being held immoral only if, and in so far as, some collateral feature, such as cowardice, characterized it. The sen timent against suicide which generally pre vails among Christians and Mohammedans constitutes one of the most signal moral ac complishments of Christianity, or rather of the Christian church. It is nowhere con demned in the Bible, though it is expressly inhibited in the Koran, Mohammedanism having "on this as un many other points bor rowed its teaching from the Christian church, and even intensified it." . . . The anti-suicide sentiment generated by the Christian church very naturally was embod ied in the English common law. . . . In the present state of intelligence, how ever, no good can result from adherence to the dogma of the absolute sinfulness of sui cide. . . . There is just one condition which safely may be tolerated by public opinion as a justification of suicide. That condition is the most simple and primitive one—the one that has been recognized by all systems save the Christian church. If a person be facing certain death, which must be preceded by excruciating physical pain, his suicide may be viewed without reproach. . . . But the line must be drawn with the avoiding of physical torture which is a prelude to certain death from causes outside the victim's will. If exceptions were allowed in favor of some
