The Indianapolis journal., 1899-12-10

reused, and when the uproar had subsided,
said in his dryest, most Indifferent tone:
after all. you see. it is merely question
of the survival of the fittest.'
Another howl, which like the former died
away, leaving the mellow tones of our
hosts voice sounding through the room as
though it had never been interrupted
''When say the fittest mean the fttest
to survive. And of course combativeness,
resource. skill in shooting If you like, ev-
erything that makes man hard to kill.
must be taken into account"
But my dear Sir Gaspard," said one
of his neighbors, who evidently
shocked at this frank materialism, re
member the moral aspect of the question,
Thou shalt not KILL you know"
"Now.>rny dear sir. ask you in all SER
iousness, is a community that uses the
gallows as one of the resources OF civiliza-
ton entitled to quote that time-worn max
i'm? What is sauce for the goose Is sauce
for the gander, surely"
'But-but we don't hang a man unless
he has first killed somebody" calculated
the squire.
Exactly. And a man who is hanged
has no reason to complain. II is one of
the rules Of the game. But don't pretend
that society, that takes the poor mans life
for her own reasons, is a bit more moral
than the criminal who takes another mans
life for what seems to him good cause
Then you think murder is perfectly
justifiable If the murderer thinks he has
good cause for killing his man-if he
wishes to do so, in short?''
Murder is one of those words IT is impos-
sible to defend, it has got such an ugly ring
about it, said our host. But can't see
i,,tr cf< hat toll he
life of man and the life of any other ami
NAL. To a disciple of Huxley and Darwin
what is man but superior sort of animal?
And,why should there be any material diff
fernce between the killing of fly and the
| slaughter of a sheep, or between the
| slaughter of a sheep and the taking of the
| life of man? If, as all philosophers hold
nowadays, man is merely higher kind of
| animal. there is no difference
"If you are in earnest, Sir Gaspard, which
take leave to doubt" said the squire.
stifiy, 81 must say think your principles
are detestable!'
The baronet's only answer tc this was a
low chuckle of amusement.
There's one thing" said I, pluntly, "that
makes a difference between killing a man
and killing a sheep. The other men will
kill you if you kill man-the other sheep
| will let you alone if you kill one of them"
81 grant you," said Sir Gaspard, with
\ perfect politeness, that man, being the
highest known animal, has certain powers
of acting in concert superior TO those of
| any other animal. But they are in the
present instance very limited. I don't sup
pose one quarter of the removals that act
ually take place are ever heard of-not one
tenth of those which are undertaken by the
| more intelligent part of the community.
| The man who takes the life of a fellow
| man for some wise purpose of his own, and
does not get found out, proves thereby his
| right to take that life. At least so Car
| lyle teaches Whereas, If he is found out,
he is thereby proved to have made a mis-
| take. He is not fit to survive, and accord
| ingly he does not survive-and 1 for one,
gentlemen. have not an ounce of pity to
spare for him..
| L had been watching Sir Gaspard keenly
during this talk, and thought detected
certain ring of conviction, if I may so
speak, Sbeneath the off-hand frivolous sur
| face Of. his manner. At best his conversa-
ton was not agreeable to me, and re-
solved that would give the genial-looking
baronet wide berth in future I remem-
ber that when 1 shook hands with him that
| night his words about man being only
superior animal came into my head. and
could not help the fancy that it was not
| the hand Of fellow-man, but the paw of
! great fiesh-eating beast, cunning and fierce
that had grasped.
Time went on. and the folk In our part
Of the country became accustomed to Sir
1 Gaspard and his ways. People were no
longer shocked at being told of the mon
strous principles he held. or pretended to
hold. He was a great sportsman, fond of
hunting shooting and coursing, and that
made him popular among the squires; but
his tenants said he was hard man, a man
who would laugh and tell a good story.
and the next moment gave sentence that
would send a poor fellow to the Bank
ruptcy Court. The country gentlemen de-
Tended him, however, on the ground that
as he was over head and ears in debt, his
estate being mortgaged to the last penny
| it would carry, he was forced to screw the
most he could out of his tenants.
In the spring.it was rumored that in spite
of his impecunious condition Sir Gaspard
was paying court to a very beautiful girl,
Juliet Etheridge, belonging to a very old
but Impoverished family in another division
of the county. The baronet seemed to be
verv much in earnest in his wooing, but
everybody said he had no chance. He had
nothing but barren title to offer his bride,
for 1t was we'll known that his cousin
Jermyn could turn him neck and crop out
of the Abbey whenever he had a mind ta
live there himself
This cousin Jermyn was small man,
with the face of rat and the morals of I:
| weasel. Nobody had a good word to say
for him, though many people were toe
deeply in his debt to say out what they
| thought. He wore habitually a shabby
brown suit, for he was something of a
miser. and among other pecuiarities he
wore a wig of brown hair that was so un-
mistakably foreign to his scalp that 1t made
not even pretense of deceiving anybody.
One popularity that gave this gentleman $
countenance a sinister aspect was that his
nose was not quite straight. II was re-
the left did not add TO the beauty or dig
nifty of its owners appearance.
That. however, was apparently a small
matter in the eyes of Miss Juliet Etheridge
or those Of her parents; for to the surprise
OF every one 1t was suddenly announced
that a marriage had been arranged between
| Jermyn Hawke and the beautiful Juliet