The Nevada County picayune., 1921-12-15

spend money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which satislfeth not" and of the Masters re buke when he said to the grown up people of his day You are like chil- dren."
 Again. we are reminded by his text that our Lord was impressed not only with the shallowness of men but also, with the s,abhorncss ot men. We have piped unto you and ye have not danced we have mourned unto you and yc have not wept." Some mon are swept off their feet by any sort of popular appeal; others have strang' lar current They will neither feast nor fast They are not moved by tn" thundcrs of the law, or the gentler p1eadingS of the gospcE They arc alike impcrvious 10 the appeals of either Sinai or Calvary. They may always be counted on to line up with the opposition party. Such people have sometimes been described as be ing, against everything that is; and for everything that aint"
 Again. we are reminded that our Lord was impressed with the incon- sistcncy of men. John the Baptist was an ascetic; fitting representa- tive of the Sternncss and rigor of the law. He abstaincd from all delicate foods and pleasant drinks and the people said. He hath devil" The Son of man. as q representative of tn" new diSpcnsation with it's freedom and light came freely mingling with mon. in sharp contrast with John who had lived the life of a wilderness recluSc, and eating and drinking in the ordi- nary way the things which were set before him. and they said. He hath d devil Illustrations and examples abound and crowd upon each other in the realm of the mind but no more striking example of this strange weak ness of human nature could he found than is seen in thc currents of poular sentiment and opinion which have been created #by= the Tom Slaughter ease which has absorbed nearly all other topics of interest in ArtansaS during the past few days-fen# days ago the masses of the people in Arkau- SIS thought of Tom Slaughter only as an exceptionally bold and reckless criminal who had been legally tried and sentenced to die for his crimes. Comparatively few people of our stat" had ever seen him. yet practically all knew of him because of the multipli- city of his crimes and the spectacular manner in which they had been com to escape from the Penitentiary in Lit tie Rock and. with a number of fellow prisoners who had escaped with hilL hadc his way into the woods north of Benton. where for some reason which may never he fully known, he was shot to death by one of his own com pany. The man, Howard wao killed him, may have been guilty of q cow arllY dCcd He may have been haSolY untrue to the man who had assist, Ii him to escape from prison Admitting that he was. he was not more eoWardly or more ungrateful than hundreds of other murderers have been whose crimes scarcely attracted any attention beyond the local community where they occurred But. by some strange and mysterious influences. wave of popular condemnation has been start ed and K fairly sweeping over the state The officers of Saline county. where the murder occurred have been quick to hail Howard before an cX- amiling court where his preliminary trial resulted in holding to answer to the charge of murder in the first de gree In speaking of this case one can hardly refrain from observing that if these same Saline county otii- ccrs had been aS jealous and courage ons tl about tapturinf Slaughter as they have been about bringing q self surrendered man to trial Tom Slaugh- ter would never have escaped into those woods to he shot to death hy one of his own companions. But, the more