the fundamental principles into molds and have them forever after in cast-iron rigidity and indestructibility is surely, we imagine, a consummation devoutly to be wished.
But soon we encounter unexpected and vexatious and puzzling difficulties. Truth has a way of losing its trueness by the very act of being exprest. Exprest, or squeezed out, it does, indeed, too often become; and nothing but an empty husk, a hollow form, remains. How often one has the vaguely haunting and curiously baffling sense that, if one were to say a certain thing, that thing would immediately cease to be so; and, that if one had only refrained from a certain other utterance, the thought intended would not have lost, so unaccountably, its quality of truth! In other words, how many times does truth show itself to be of a nature quite too shy to be caught and tamed, too slippery to be grasped, too elusive to be held fast! To take a homely illustration, Mrs. Smith says to Mrs. Brown, "I am more polite than you," and straightway an assertion that might have been true, if unuttered, becomes glaringly false. An able lawyer was once arguing a case in court when the judge interrupted him by declaring, "That is not the law." "It was the law, your Honor, until your Honor spoke," was the two-edged rejoinder. Some such ironical retort is constantly being flung back at us by the inscrutabilities that we attempt to fathom. We know not well (tho we are learning) the subtle ways they "keep, and pass, and turn again."
"Outworn creeds" is a phrase familiar to all. But why have we so abundant a heritage of these cast-off garments? Is not their undurability owing to the fact that truth is dynamic rather than static? We must believe that at every instant of time something is true; but that the same thing, stated just so and no otherwise, is true for all time, is not so certain, and he who depends on a fixt creed, of elaborate pattern, to bear him up through all the stormy seas, is likely to find himself clinging to a very poor life-preserver.—The Christian Register.
(616)
Crime and Playgrounds—See Play and Morals.
CRIME, EPIDEMICS OF
In the days of bank burglaries—now much
less frequent, owing to the protections that
science has provided for money vaults—it
was not often that a single robbery was
reported; they "came in battalions." This
was not because the same gangs engaged in
many different enterprises, but because a universal
similar impulse permeated the minds
of the criminal class devoted to these forms
of guilt. A curious study might be made of
the causes of epidemics of crime. In superstitious
times all evils were attributed to
the influence of adverse stars. This may
have been an approach to scientific truth,
or its advanced shadow. The causes of
meteorological change must be the causes
lying back of the pervading disposition at
times witnessed to commit peculiar classes of
crime. A suicidal atmosphere must have its
origin in some of the secret springs of
nature. Advanced speculation has recently
attributed cyclones, earthquakes, and other
terrestrial disturbances to great changes in
the surface of the sun or in the superheated
ether surrounding it. A theory quite as
plausible as this might attribute epidemics of
crime to similar influences, by which weak
reasons are overthrown and murderous intents
are kindled in excitable minds with
destructive tendencies. There are causes for
all things in life and nature, and no study of
such causes is in vain.—Chicago Journal.
(617)
CRIME EXPOSED
Marshall P. Wilder describes a punishment common in China:
The cangue is a large square board that
fits about the neck, and besides being very
heavy and uncomfortable, is considered a
great disgrace, for it has the prisoner's
name and crime pasted on it. In order to
make the punishment more severe, the prisoner
is often condemned to be taken to the
place where the crime was committed and
made to stand near the store or house where
the nature of his crime, as well as his name,
is plainly to be read by every passer-by.
This is a terrible punishment, for the Chinese
are very sensitive about being publicly
shamed.—"Smiling 'Round the World."
(618)
See Evidence, Providential.
CRIME IN FORMER DAYS
Every week a host of young lads were
hanged for theft, and the spectacle of a
criminal riding through the streets to Tyburn,
and getting as drunk as he conveniently
could upon the way, was too common
to attract attention. London was called the
City of the Gallows, for from whatever
joint you entered it. by land or water, you
passed between a lane of gibbets, where the
