has served for thirty-five years as a justice in the principal London police court. Reviewing his career, says a London despatch to the " Sun " : — He noted the wonderful decrease in crimes of brutality and violence, but said there was an in crease in the number of crimes for which brains and ingenuity were required. He ascribed this to the improved education given by the board schools. He was certain that unless means were taken to counteract the effects of education on the minds of the criminally inclined, crimes of a clever nature would greatly increase.
A newly-related jest of the late Sir Frank Lockwood is going the rounds of the press. In a debate in the Commons his friend, Mr. Uirrell, had set a man of straw as a target for argument, which he named the Rev. Tobias Boffin, B.A. (London), and which, it is easy to guess, repre sented some amusing vagary of the non-conform ist conscience. In half an hour Mr. Birrell had demolished Boffin, and he had nearly for gotten him, when, two or three days later, he re ceived a letter from him, sharply resenting the attack in the house. He was the more surprised and perplexed when, not long after, he chanced upon Boffin's name in a list of those present at a conference of northern liberals in Leeds to con sider the reform of the upper chamber. From Leeds, as a newspaper soon informed him, Boffin had apparently come to London, and attended a dinner in honor of Lord Kimberley. By this time Mr. Birrell was a little dismayed. Had he, by some pure accident given his man of straw a name that really had flesh and blood and some local influence in his own party behind it? The sudden prominence of Boffin, however, in para graphs that were likely to catch his eye quickened his suspicions; inquiries confirmed them, and Sir Frank Lockwood found so much pleasure in his jest that he half admitted it. The Boffin of the speech had tickled the barrister's fancy and he had forthwith persuaded a friend or two in the press gallery of the house to place his name in paragraphs where it would most discomfort and perplex Mr. Birrell. After the dinner to I-ord Kimberley, Boffin seemed to return to the obscurity of his meeting house; but from time time in the session, espe cially when Mr. Birrell was in the company of
other members, the parson's card would come from the lobby with an urgent request for " an interview on private business." At the long va cation, Sir Frank went to his house in Yorkshire, and Mr. Birrell fancied he was done with his in dignant pursuer. In November, however, when political meetings began to be frequent again, he received a clipping from a newspaper that pur ported to summarize the speech of a Liberal member in the North Riding. The speaker had mentioned Mr. Birrell, " Thereupon," the report proceeded, the Reverend Tobias Boffin, B. A. (Ix»ndon) came to the front and expressed in strong language his regret that Mr. Alfred Pease had thought fit to allude to Mr. Birrell, M. P., as his honorable friend and a good Liberal. He went on to say, amid considerable interruption, that for his part he would be ashamed to number among his friends such a man. The chairman asked Mr. Boffin to postpone his remarks and to allow Mr. Pease to continue. (Cheers and ' Sit down, Boffin!') Amid general disorder, Mr. Boffin quitted the platform." When he left the hall, he vanished completely and forever.
Says " The Monetary Times," Toronto : " Eng land has at last recognized that the state has a duty in connection with the inebriate. A law has just gone into force under which an individ ual, after a fourth conviction for drunkenness, is to be treated as an habitual drunkard and con fined in a reformatory at the expense of himself or his friends, if they be able to pay, or at the cost of the state if necessary."
Dr. J. Marty, a French criminologist, has re cently made an examination of four thousand delin quent soldiers of the French army, and has found that in height, weight, breast measure, muscular power and general condition, they averaged much better than the well-behaved soldiers. Dr. Marty does not imply that criminals are by nature better physically than non-criminals, but suggests that the condition of criminal families is so much more wretched than respectable ones, that only the uncommonly strong survive.
A law was recently passed in Norway pro hibiting the sale of tobacco to any boy under
