crime was premeditated. Probably Holmes called on September 2 merely for the pur pose of arranging further details of the scheme, found Pitezel intoxicated, and re membering what dangerous secrets his drinking associate might some time disclose, and in the sudden hope of securing the en tire booty, the arch-criminal had resort to the ever-present chloroform. If the crime had been long premeditated, it is probable that the details would have been better arranged. The present short account of a crime as involved as was that of the quadruple mur der, necessarily compels the omission of many incidents which would throw strong light on what cannot fail to be an interesting personality. The peculiar bent of mind of the instinctive criminal—that warping of the brain, characterized by a lack of ethical faculties—in fine, the entire absence of all ability to distinguish right from wrong, was present in the highest degree. Such an individual will pervert the truth, not so much to escape detection as because he can not help himself, for he will ofttimes lie when the truth would in reality have served his purpose better. We have seen the bungling manner in which the first murder was managed. Do not the circumstances warrant the conclu sion that Holmes was in a state of abject panic at the time? Surely he should have better hidden the true cause of death and
TENURE
IN
IRELAND
presented more credible evidences of an explosion with practically an entire after noon at his disposal. The murder of the children, while performed in a far abler manner, was open to the objection that the criminal did not entirely destroy the bodies, thus preventing any proof by the Common wealth of the corpus delicti. When will the murderer ever realize that the only safe course to pursue upon being arrested is to wholly refrain from any allu sion whatever to the crime until he has seen counsel? Instead of so doing he will usually converse with detective, jailer, magistrate or reporter, only to have his statements spread upon the records of the trial. In this brief analysis of a famous crime, the endeavor has been to point out a few of the defects inherent in the average homi cide, which defects, as previously observed, render the art of undetected murder a some what difficult one to practice. It was cer tainly not with any desire to indicate a method in which crime should be performed in order to secure immunity that this sketch has been written. "Everything in this world," as De Quincey has aptly put it, "has two handles. Murder, for instance, may be laid hold of by its moral handle (as it gener ally is in the pulpit and at the Old Bailey), and that, I confess, is its weak side; or it may also be treated aesthetically, as the Germans call it, that is in relation to good taste."
UNDER
THE
BREHON
LAWS.
BY JOSEPH M. SULLIVAN. IN ancient times justice in Ireland was reg ulated and administered by the Brehon law, which is said to have been formed into a code at a very early period. The Brehon laws, as we learn from the best authorities, were a written code three cr four centuries before those of more modern Europe were
transcribed. They were undoubtedly of Phoenician or Milesian origin, and owed their existence to the traders of Phoenicia and Tyre, who, in very ancient times, visited the coast of Ireland, and brought with them the civilization and customs of the Orient. They were written in a character called the
