upon

Pleaceman, X." entitled " Jacob Hom-gar oss-dealer," but to the well-known nium's Hoss." I fear that the verses Mr. Higgins, by whose apparent auare sufficiently forgotten for a sketch thority the horse had been taken away of the plot to be expedient. Jacob from Tattersall's, and who, in fact, got Homnium had a horse at Tattersall's, the benefit of the board and lodging whence it was taken away, upon a with which the animal was provided. forged order in Jacob's name, by a This was, in fact, one of the large wulgar oss-dealer," who kept it at a class of cases in which the question is: livery-stable, and, very imprudently, A., who is a rogue, having imposed rode it in the Park, as it would seem, upon X. and Y., who are honest, and for his pleasure. There Jacob's groom thereby caused loss, is that loss to be saw and recognized the horse, where- borne by honest X. or by honest Y. ? "The raskle thief got off the oss, It is of no use to say, as the nursery and cut avay like vind." The livery-justiciar probably might, “By neither stable keeper thereupon sued Jacob for X. nor Y. The rogue A. must bear the keep of the horse, and the judge it." If you can catch A., and get restiof the "Palace Court" at Westmins- tution from him, the question does not ter gave judgment, upon the verdict arise. In practice, you can sometimes of a jury, for the plaintiff. Shortly catch him, if you think it worth while, after, and according to one tradition but he can never make restitution. propter, this event, the Palace Court The only just course is to have a fixed was abolished. It is clear that Thack-rule, the best that can be devised, and eray, looking at the matter from the point of view of his friend, "Jacob Omnium," had no doubt whatever of the flagrant injustice of this decision. The burning and inimitable words which he puts into the mouth of Jacob are these:

Because a raskle chews

My oss away to robb,
And goes tick at your Mews

For seven-and-fifty bobb,
Shall I be called to pay?- It is
A iniquitious Jobb.

apply it rigorously, regardless of the facts that the plaintiff is a presumably honest tradesman, and the defendant a literary gentleman rich enough to keep a horse-whatever sympathies or antipathies either of those facts may

arouse.

If you have not the rule, or having it do not apply it rigorously, you are not just; and the devising, or ascer tainment, and application of the rule, are not such simple or easy matters as many persons uneducated in justice might and do suppose.

It

From Jacob's point of view, the state- From the foregoing considerations it ment is admirable. But from that of appears that justice, since it consists in the livery-stableman, is it quite so un- the right discovery and administration answerable? Jacob's horse had to be of some law or rule, has no existence somewhere, and it had to be fed. If where no law or rule exists. If the the "raskle thief" had let it alone, it word is used without reference to any would have been running up a bill at definite rule, applicable to the subject Tattersall's. It did, in fact, stand in under discussion, its use is futile. the plaintiff's stable, and ate the plain- must relate to something. The word is tiff's hay and oats. It was not sug- used, often enough, with complete gested even by the naturally indignant futility, and when it is so used it usuJacob that the livery-stableman was ally relates to something, and that privy to the theft of the horse; and it something is the momentary taste or seems probable on the whole that the opinion of the speaker. "I call it unlivery-stable man knew whose the horse fair," that, —e.g., the man with a hard was, and did not know that the "wul-heart, a good digestion, and plenty of gar oss-dealer" had no authority to put money, should obtain the hand of the it in his stable. He might well say coveted heiress, while the penniless that he gave credit, not to the "wul-invalid, compact of all the cardinal vir

If we knew that whoever decided upon the fate of human beings had rules to administer, if we further knew what they were, and if, again, we knew that they were not equally and indifferently applied to the case of different indi

we might properly complain of injustice, but the reproach is not justified in the absence of such knowledge. To use it is like accusing a man of forging cheques because you reasonably believe him to be a burglar, and such an accusation is neither judicious, nor quite honest.

tues, has to go without means, gen- about it than is stated above. Yet it erally speaking, that the individual is conceivable that it might be just. calling it unfair personally dislikes the arrangement, and nothing more. This is an absolutely futile use of the word, because it is a fallacious and inaccurate statement of a fact which might easily be accurately stated, as for example in the words, "It makes me angry.' ."viduals or classes of individuals, then Suppose that a child with a passion for horses earned by hard work a shilling, and permission to go to a circus, and suppose that on the way to the circus an idle companion stole the shilling, and went in with it, the owner of the shilling being excluded by reason of his inability to recover his property. Many persons not understanding the nature of justice would hastily say that the good child's fate was unfair, or unjust, meaning that it was deplorable. In fact, it would not be unfair, because the rule of the circus would be that no one was admitted without paying a shilling, and that rule would have been duly ascertained and equally administered to the good child and to the thief.

The questions naturally arise upon this explanation and limitation of the word justice, whether, according to the opinions here indicated, an unjust law is a contradiction in terms; whether it is inaccurate to apply the term "unjust " to the most wicked and the most foolish law that could be imagined; and, if it be inaccurate, whether the theory I have sought to develop is not a paradox too glaring for human nature's daily food. I think the first two of these questions — which are different forms of the same question - may safely be answered in the negative. Suppose it were enacted by law that every person having red hair should be put to death. Such a law, if it were

In cases where you do not know either (1) whether there are any rules, or (2) what they are - there can be no knowledge of justice or injustice. More religions than one have taught, or have at different times been believed to teach, that happiness in the next world is impossible without the pre-made in earnest, and put in force to liminary of an initiatory rite in this. Various persons have asserted it to be " unjust " that a person who, after initiation, has lived a life of sin, followed by a brief and inexpensive repentance, should be saved, while an aged person of extraordinary virtue, and an innocent infant, neither of whom had any possibility of initiation, should both be damned for the want of it. This is a slipshod and inaccurate way of saying that the speaker dislikes such an arrangement. It is also dangerous, because it tends unduly to prejudice the mind against the whole of that particular religion. Of course, every one with humane feelings dislikes, and ought to dislike, such an arrangement, when he knows no more

ever so slight an extent, would be oppressive, sanguinary, and detestable to the last degree. It would also be called unjust by many persons, and especially by those whose hair was red. The epithet would, to a great extent, if not entirely, be justified by the facts that a penal law is not a good one, and ought not to be enacted, unless the acts or qualities of individuals subject to it, which it visits with a penalty, constitute a substantial distinction between those individuals and all others, and unless it is also in harmony with the general moral sentiments of the persons for whose governance it is made.

Moreover, the question whether any law can properly be described as unjust

From Blackwood's Magazine. MONSIEUR LE COMTE.

is almost exclusively theoretical. We may be quite sure that if a statute punishing the possession of red hair with PERHAPS I had better explain at death were made in a civilized country, once that it was I myself who bestowed it would be because there was in that upon him the title, to which his only country at that time, either a strong, claim was the grandeur of his manner and, for the moment, prevalent opinion and his foreign accent. It was at a that to have red hair was extremely" jumble" sale in behalf of some charwrong, or a strong and prevalent reso-ity or other that I first made his lution, for some reason or other, to acquaintance. He pushed his way extirpate red-haired persons. If a new and formidable disease appeared, of the nature of influenza, and medical opinion declared it to be capable of being produced only by the presence of redhaired people, with as much unanimity as that with which they now declare vaccination to be a protection against small-pox, it is quite conceivable that a law might be passed against red hair, that it might be justly enforced, and that it might be quite undeserving of being called an unjust law.

through the jostling, elbowing crowd of would-be purchasers to the hat-stall at which I was selling a tall old man, with a gaunt, erect figure, clad in the shabbiest of tail-coats, that seemed to have been made for a person half his size, the sleeves reaching only about half-way down his arms.

"Mademoiselle is surprised to see me here," he said, with a low bow and an apologetic smile, as he removed the shabby cloth cap he wore; "but I thought I might perhaps get a leetle present for a friend, who is in what you call adverse circumstances. The days have been when it was not here I would come for a present for a friend; but I myself "here he shrugged his shoulders expressively and heaved a deep sigh, adding the next moment, with a sudden change of tone and manner, "Well, well, we must not complain! Things might always be worse!"

Meantime he was examining, in the most leisurely and minute way, the hats I had placed before him, trying them on one after the other slowly and

in an aside, his friend's head was about the size of his own. When he had at last selected a hat a tall one-he thrust his hand into his greasy trouserpocket with an air of lordly magnificence, and drew out a sixpenny-piece, which he laid on the table.

From this it follows that no one is qualified to appreciate justice, or to detect the existence of injustice, unless he understands the nature of laws and rules generally, and can easily satisfy himself on the preliminary point, deliberately; for, as he informed me whether in the given instance, there are any rules or not. To be fully fitted to criticise in a particular case, he must be able to go further, and to say, with probable accuracy, what the rules in question are, and whether they have been properly, that is to say, correctly and indifferently, administered. No "Never mind the change!" he said, one is generally qualified to do this un-in a tone at once jauntily reckless and less he has devoted a good deal of magnanimously dignified, not having attention to the subject, and has, in-apparently caught my remark that sixdeed, had something very like a legal pence was the price of the hat-"never education. No one, in fact, is born just. Men sometimes, and women seldom, or never, become so.

A. CLERK.

mind the change-it is for a good cause. Will mademoiselle take down my address? Ah, you do not send! That is a pity. In that case "— here

he paused, and wrinkled his brow in spoke, he took two or three steps along perplexed reflection"in that case, the lobby, and with a lofty air flung I shall have to put it on myself. Made- wide open a door on the left hand. moiselle understands that I could not "This," he said, in a gracious tone, as carry it. Good-day." And placing his of a person conferring a favor "this new purchase on his head, he strode is my drawing-room, my salon, which away, dignified and erect. I resign to mademoiselle. I always like to accommodate the ladies-place aux dames is my motto."

I cast a look round the room. It was small, and absolutely bare, save for two wooden chairs, one of which wanted a leg, and a small wooden table. For the rest, the window looked to the north, and the coloring of the walls was tolerably good. The room would suit my purpose well enough, and I said so.

It was not till some months later that I came across him again. I had advertised for a studio. As my home was in the suburbs, I wanted a room with a good light in a central part of the town, where I should be within reach of possible buyers and possible pupils. Among those who replied to my advertisement was M. le Comte. He did not, of course, sign himself so, and I did not recognize him from his letter, though the grandiose tone in which it was written corresponded with the magnificent manner of my friend of the jumble sale; but almost the moment I saw him I knew him again. The address given in his letter was that of a side street in a busy neighborhood, where there were many offices and studios. After mounting three stairs, I found on the third landing a door bearing a brass plate with the in-room the most part. The salon is altoscription:

M. ANDRE PICOTON,

PROFESSOR OF THE FRENCH LANGUAGE.

I knocked; and after a few moments
the door was opened by no less a per-
son than M. le Comte himself, wearing
a tall hat
no doubt the very one I
had sold him, looking none the better
for its three months' wear since. He
removed it at once, however, on seeing
me, and made a deep bow.

"But," I added, "I should not like to deprive you of your drawing-room." "Mademoiselle is very good," he replied. "It gives me pleasure to oblige her. And for this room "" here he shrugged his shoulders and elevated his eyebrows "as mademoiselle sees, it is not in use. Madame does not receive for some years; she is what you call delicate - confined to her

gether at the service of mademoiselle!" This with a low bow, and an outward movement of the arms, expressive of a magnanimous generosity that disclaimed all merit, and would not even accept thanks.

To speak of such a vulgar thing as money seemed actually indelicate, if not insulting. Still it had to be done; so, as delicately as I could, I hinted that I should like to know what rent was expected.

"Ah, the lady whom I accommodate "Ah, as to that, mademoiselle will with an apartement as studio!" he ex-excuse me - I do not interfere in such claimed politely, when I had explained matters. But here comes my good my errand; and turning back into the Janett — you ladies will be able to setnarrow, dark lobby, he called out in a tle everything between you." dignified, authoritative tone, Janett, Janett!"

As he was speaking, I had heard the sound of a very slow, very heavy step approaching up the stairs; and there now entered the room an old woman, clad in an extremely shabby bonnet and woollen shawl, and carrying a market-basket. She was a large-made, large-boned woman, who must have As he been tall before the weight of years of

As no one, however, appeared in an swer to his call, he returned to the door, saying, with an apologetic smile: "I fear I must myself be your cicerone my good Janett must have gone out. Will mademoiselle give herself the trouble to follow me ?"

toil had bent her broad back into the sticks as I can carry awa' frae the shape of a bow. Her head shook yaird. It's no' that bad pay; but I'm slightly from side to side, and her face, getting ower auld noo for wark - I'm which was heavy and large featured, getting ower auld." And her voice wore the dull, patient expression of an overworked horse.

66

Janett," said M. le Comte, " I have

died away in a low mutter, which I I could not follow.

"You deserve a rest now," I said, in

promised to accommodate mademoiselle order to say something. here with the use of the salon."

66

"Ay, that I dae!" she answered.

'Hoots, get awa' wi' your French-"But I canna get it. I maun work, I ified havers!" exclaimed the old maun work, and a' for And woman, who spoke with a broad Scotch she gave a bitterly expressive nod of accent, and in a slow, deep, almost mas- her head towards the wall which sepaculine voice, that contrasted strangely rated the room we were in from the with monsieur's light and jaunty tones. next, while once more her voice trailed "I never ken what he means when he off into the low muttered monologue gets on to his French," she added, turn- which seemed to be habitual with her. ing to me. "Was it a studio you was "But" - suddenly waking up to a wanting, mem?" consciousness of my presence "I'll see that your room's cleaned and your fire lichted for you never you fash yoursel' aboot it! If I canna dae it, he maun jist dae it; he may as weel earn the saut to his parritch!"

Behind her back, while she was speaking, monsieur was shrugging his shoulders, and looking at me with an amused, indulgent expression on his face.

"A privileged pairson, you see, mademoiselle -a privileged pairson," he said to me, in a deprecating aside, which was not overheard by the deaf old woman. "Well, ladies," he added, louder, "I think I shall just leave you to settle the affairs of the nation." And with a bow to me, he walked quickly out of the room.

"Ay, it's weel for them that can get ither folk to dae a'thing for them," the old woman muttered with a short, deep laugh, as he retreated from the room. And then, turning to me, she asked abruptly,

Naturally, I wondered very much who he was, but concluded it could not possibly be M. le Comte who was meant. However, before many weeks were over, during which I had been comfortably installed in my new studio, I was to make the discovery that it was no other than he. Coming into the room one morning earlier than usual, I found that my fire was not yet lighted. While I was looking about for matches, there was a knock at the door, which was followed by the entrance of monsieur himself.

"Mademoiselle is early astir this

"What rent was ye thinking to gi'e morning," he said, as he made a deep for the room?" bow with all his usual dignity and Evidently there was no reluctance jauntiness of manner, in spite of the here to speak of money matters! How-fact that in one hand he carried an iron ever, I found her reasonable, and even "blower," and in the other a shovel; modest, in her demands, and we soon while from under one arm there procame to terms. About the cleaning of truded a pair of bellows, and from unthe room and the lighting of the fire der the other a hearth-brush. "My there seemed at first to be some diffi- good Janett is out this morning, so I culty. must myself render mademoiselle the little service of lighting her fire."

"You see, I'd dae it mysel'," she said, "but I'm aye oot in the morning I offered to light it myself, but he the noo. I've gotten wark frae Wil- was quite indignant at the suggestion. son, the upholsterer in West Street "Impossible, impossible I could therefower shillings a week for not permit mademoiselle to soil her cleaning oot the premises, and as monyfair fingers!" he exclaimed, with a