reverential timidity, to shrink from reforming the settled construction which the instru ment has received, and at the hazard of its obvious defects. It is but a short polit being regarded as unsound and visionary; ical code, — one of the shortest, — and yet, but I am asking whether that construction no doubt, the most complete that wa*s ever was necessary, and whether the time has thrown off at a dash by the hand of man., not come for taking a step forward in its Nevertheless, it must have been intended construction, for the purpose of avoiding by its framers, and especially by the states intole'rable evils? But if, as is no doubt the which ratified it, none of whom understood fact, the taking of that step by the supreme all its provisions in the same sense, that national tribunal is hopeless, then I submit latitude would be allowed for judicial inter pretation, and for the application of its that the time has arrived when the legal pro fession — who must take the lead in matters various provisions according to the teach ings of experience. Codes have arrested, of this kind — ought to consider the ques tion of so amending the federal Constitution but have never permanently impeded the as to enlarge the power of the Supreme Court progress of jurisprudence. Under them, of the United States to that of a tribunal judicial interpretation has supplied the place organized, not merely for the decision of of original exposition; and they have been "federal questions," but for the settlement of glossed into new meanings, suited to new conflicts among citizens of different states, modes of thought and to the demands of where no federal questions are involved. successive ages. The men who framed the federal Constitu I do not approve of interpretations of the tion were' able, wise, and patriotic; and so federal Constitution which involve plain de were its first interpreters. But to them the partures from the meaning of the instru whole project was tentative; they were ment; but I do believe that the highest without experience^ they reasoned from federal court can find, in the instrument narrow analogies; they knew nothing of itself, the power to do much toward reliev the steamboat, the railway train, the electric ing the conflicts suggested in this sketch, telegraph, or the telephone; and we, after and that what the court cannot find in it a century of experience of the workings of should be supplied by earnest and thought the instrument, ought not, influenced by a | ful political action.
THE MONEY-LENDER'S ROMANCE. MR. QUASIMODO, as I will call him, was scrupulously particular as to his personal appearance, and always dressed in glossy broadcloth of raven hue; and in the centre of his spotless lawn shirt-front glis tened a large diamond solitaire. His hat was very tall and very shiny, and was al ways provided with a shallow crape hat band; but on being interrogated as to what bereavement he had recently undergone, he would return evasive answers; and it was
generally understood by Mr. Quasimodo's intimates that the sign of mourning was a general and not a particular one, and that he wore it in sorrowful remembrance of clients who had fled to Boulogne, or who had passed through the court for the relief of insolvent debtors. He wore the nattiest little black kid gloves imaginable, and his feet were shod with unimpeachably elegant boots of French kid with varnished tips. The only thing which he needed to complete
