Morning journal and courier., 1880-02-27

Quincy there is noticeably growing love fo,
 school and all that pertains to it. Means of
 stimulating attendance, behavior and study,
 outside of real teaching, are becoming less
 and less necessary. Tardiness has been great.
 ly reduced during the past year, and the tru-
 ancies are confined to @ few trivial cases, most
 of which are due to changes in teachers.
 There have been only two truants who seemed
 incorrigible, and they have been cured by
 kind treatment. There have been few pun
 ishments of any kind and they, like the tru-
 ancies, are generally caused by changes in
 teachers. The results seem to prove that the
 der punishment and compulsion in attend
 ance unnecessary. There is said to be also 6
 far higher result than this-to be seen Ey
 those who follow the children from step to
 step, and grade to grade. It is the steady
 growth in good character of the boys and
 girls in the Quincy public schools. The moral
 effect of filling children's heads full of good
 thoughts and their hands full of pleasant, ab-
 sorbing work is the formation of good habits of thought and action.
 General B. F. Butler, the president of the National Home for Disabled Soldiers, in his report on the affairs of that establishment makes a suggestion that has a wide applica- tion. After saying that the inmates of the home are required to assign their pensions to it, but that when the arrears bill became 8 law some of the inmates preferred to take their money, varying in amount from two hundred kn fiffeaY bunHrad 6oIIorc nd fhnir diseharpA from the home, he adds: ''Now they are com- ing back after one, two, three and four months absence, with their money entirely gone, almost universally squandered, broken down in health, with added disabilities, many of them only fit subjects for the hospital, to be cared for out of our funds, making an ad- ditional burden upon us. The board do not criticise, as they have not the right to criti- else, the decision of the law officer of the Gov ernment Chat the arrears must be paid to the inmates of the home and not to the home) ; but assuming it to be the law we bring it to the attention of Congress, so that if ever here after any gratuity is to be given to the sol diers so far as the National Home is con- cerned, it may not be in fact given to the gambling sharks and rumsellers who prey upon the soldier, and be in fact gratuity to them, and not to the soldier himself, except to be curse and not blessing'
 Not long ago we gave some account of the trouble lone dead woodcock" has made the Massachusetts courts, and the case is not yet ended. At the trial in the Superior Court it appeared that the proprietors of Young's ho- tel, Boston, had and served at their dining room to guest woodcock, for which they received payment. It also appeared that the woodcock was not killed, taken or caught within the limits of the Commonwealth of but was taken, caught or killed in the State of Pennsylvania, at a season and time when it was lawful, by the laws of that State, to take, catch or kill woodcock, and was dead when brought into Massachusetts. Upon these facts the defendants asked the court to direct verdict of not guilty, and further asked the court to rule that the defendants had not committed any offerse under the laws of Massachusetts. The court declined to so rule, and instructed the jury, as a matter of law, that the defendants were liable under the statute, and directed verdict of guilty. The defendants alleged exceptions. The case was argued before the full bench in January last. On tho part of the defendants it was argued that the evident purpose and intent of the act were to protect live game within the limits of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. On the part of the Commonwealth it was argued that the ruling of the Superior Court was correct, and that the statute prohibited the having in and selling in Massachusetts in the month of July woodcock lawfully killed in another State. The court has now sustained the exceptions taken by the defendants, set aside the verdict and ordered new trial, for the reason that ''the defendants are not punish able under the statute for having in their pos session, offering for sals and selling wood cock, which is admitted to have been lawfully taken or killed in another State"