Nong-tzi had omitted, in a work in which he had occasion to name several Chinese emperors, to give them all their titles. This crime well meri ted quartering, and to many the commuting of the penalty seemed a regrettable weakness on the part of the Son of Heaven. However, they were somewhat reassured by a precaution that their sovereign took. To eradicate all pernicious germs, he ordered the children of Nong-tzi to be decapitated also. Emperor William's methods of suppressing journalists are tame in comparison. The Russians may suppress all they want to with out rivaling their Asiatic neighbor; and the Eng lish will probably be despised for not wanting to suppress anything at all. Word comes from France that we have a con vict in Connecticut, named John Henry Davis, who knows all Shakespeare's plays by heart, and has given fourteen years of his life to the study of the dramatist. Before he was imprisoned he knew nothing of Shakespeare or his works, but his interest was aroused by hearing a clergyman, who had just returned from Stratford- on-Avon, talking of the poet's birthplace. Davis is said to possess the best editions of Shakespeare, and to be in correspondence with all the most famous Shakespeareans. His favorite tragedy is " Ham let," and the only ambition of his life to be par doned so that he can go England and visit Stratford. In Switzerland, says the same au thority, lives a man who recently began to read a book containing 123 hymns, and can now recite each of them correctly as its number is men tioned. To the Earl of Sussex was granted the privi lege of wearing a nightcap in the royal presence of Queen Mary. The fact is mentioned in Miss Strickland's " Lives of the Queen of England" as being one of the odd rewards bestowed by Mary upon her friends after her accession. The earl was a valetudinarian, and had a great fear of uncovering his head. Considering, therefore, that the colds he dreaded respected no person, he petitioned Queen Mary for leave to wear a nightcap in her presence. The queen not only gave him leave to wear one, but two night caps if he pleased. His patent for this privilege is unique in royal annals : " Know ye that we do grant to our well-beloved and trusty cousin and
councillor, Henry, Earl of Sussex, license and pardon to wear his cap, coif, or nightcap, or any two of them at his pleasure, as well in our pres ence as in the presence of any other person within this realm, or in any other place in our dominions whatsoever during his life, and these our letters shall be sufficient warrant in his behalf." The queen's seal, with the garter above it, was affixed to this singular grant. Three persons in Great Britain alone enjoy the privilege of remain ing covered in the royal presence — namely, Lord Forester, Lord Kinsale and the mister of Trinity College, Cambridge. "Probably the most extraordinary coincidence connected with the Zola trial," says the London "Daily Chronicle," " is the fact that whilst the eminent novelist was being so pluckily defended in one court by Maitre Labori, in another and adjoin ing court a man named Zola was condemned to three years' hard labor for forging the signature of a certain Mme. Labori, neither the convict nor his victim being in any way connected with M. Emile Zola or his advocate. One is scarcely at liberty to say, without the consent of the Supreme Court, what the intention of Congress was in creating the Interstate Com merce Commission, says Prof. Henry C. Adams in the April " Atlantic." Accepting, however, the language of the act as the only basis of interpre tation, it seems clear that the ability of the com mission to perform its duties was made dependent upon the cooperation of the courts. Had it been possible for the courts to have accepted the spirit of the act, and to have rendered their assistance heartily and without reserve, there is reason to believe that the pernicious discrimination in railway service and the unjust charges for trans portation would now have been in large measure a thing of the past. As it is, the most significant chapter in the history of the commission pertains to its persistent endeavors to work out some modus vivendi without disturbing the dignity of the judiciary. A rather curious law case is likely to arise out of the use of poisoned grain in Essex, England. With the view of thinning down the sparrows, which were much too numerous to please, a farmer scattered poisoned wheat over a
