stuck in a quicksand. The water rose in the coach, to the horror of the registrar and other officers, who crept out of the windows and scrambled on the top behind the coach-box. They urged his lordship to do the same, but with great dignity and gravity he sat till the water rose to his lips, and then he was just able to exclaim, "I will follow your counsel if you can quote to me any precedent for a judge mounting on a coach-box." No "authority" could be produced, owing to the darkness of the night! (Text.)—Croake James, "Curiosities of Law and Lawyers."
(2583)
PUNCTILIOUSNESS IN LITTLE THINGS
The late Edmund Clarence Stedman told of his experiences as a clerk in the office of the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad:
Finding his cash short one day, to the extent
of two cents, Stedman took the money
out of his pocket and dropt it into the till.
After he had left the employment of the
company he met in the street one day the
treasurer of the company, who asked him
whether his cash account was right every
time while he was with the company. When
the treasurer's attention was called to the
exception he exclaimed, "Confound you,
Stedman, we have had the whole force of
the office at work for weeks trying to find
that two cents."
(2584)
PUNCTUALITY
A New York motorman is the subject of the following news item in a daily paper:
For the first time in thirty years Robert
Willoughby failed to wake up this morning
when his thirty clocks, simultaneously setting
off a series of gongs, gave their customary
alarms at six o'clock. He had died
some time during the night of Bright's disease.
Willoughby was fifty-seven years old and had been employed as a motorman by the Third Avenue Elevated Railway. He was the most punctual employee in the service. No matter what the weather was, Willoughby was never late.
The secret of his punctuality came to light when his room was inspected to-day. Ranged round his bed were thirty clocks of different sizes and makes. All struck the same hour at the same time.
(2585)
Punishment—See Crime Exposed.
Punishment Escaped—See Discipline
Evaded.
Punishment Fitting Offense—See Patriotism,
Lack of.
PUNISHMENT, FORMER SEVERITY OF
In the reign of Henry VIII, 72,000 thieves
were hanged, being at the rate of 2,000 a
year. In the reign of George III, twenty
persons were executed on the same morning
in London for stealing. In 1785, ninety-seven
persons were executed in London for stealing
from a shop to the value of five shillings or
more. If the amount were less than five
shillings the punishment was not capital.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century the punishment of death might be inflicted for more than two hundred crimes. These are some of the offenses that were punished with death: Picking a man's pocket, taking a rabbit from a warren, stealing five shillings or more from a shop, cutting down a tree, catching and stealing a fish, personating a Greenwich pensioner, stealing a sheep or horse, harboring an offender against the revenue acts.
(2586)
Punishment in China—See Crime Exposed.
Punishment of Sinners—See Sinners
and God.
PUNISHMENT, PROFITABLE
Oscar Wilde wrote:
I want to get to the point when I shall be
able to say quite simply, and without affectation,
that the two great turning-points in
my life were when my father sent me to
Oxford, and when society sent me to prison.
I will not say that prison is the best thing
that could have happened to me; for that
phrase would savor of too great bitterness
toward myself. I would sooner say or hear
it said of me that I was so typical a child of
my age that, in my perversity and for that
perversity's sake, I turned the good things
of my life to evil, and the evil things of my
life to good.
And if I then am not ashamed of my punishment, as I hope not to be, I shall be able to think, and walk, and live with freedom.
In the very fact that people will recognize me wherever I go, and know all about my life, as far as its follies go, I can discern
