oung friend in a bad light, with a table between
him and his hearers.

Then Andrew began.

"The Society for Doing Without," he read, "has been tried and found
wanting. It has now been in existence for some years, and its members
have worked zealously, though unostentatiously.

"I am far from saying a word against them. They are patriots as true
as ever petitioned against the Channel Tunnel."

"No compliments," whispered the president, warningly. Andrew hastily
turned a page, and continued:

"But what have they done? Removed an individual here and there. That
is the extent of it.

"You have been pursuing a half-hearted policy. You might go on for
centuries at this rate before you made any perceptible difference in
the streets.

"Have you ever seen a farmer thinning turnips? Gentlemen, there is an
example for you. My proposal is that everybody should have to die on
reaching the age of forty-five years.

"It has been the wish of this society to avoid the prejudices
engendered of party strife. But though you are a social rather than a
political organisation, you cannot escape politics. You do not call
yourselves Radicals, but you work for Radicalism. What is Radicalism?
It is a desire to get a chance. This is an aspiration inherent in the
human breast. It is felt most keenly by the poor.

"Make the poor rich, and the hovels, the misery, the immorality, and
the crime of the East End disappear. It is infamous, say the
Socialists, that this is not done at once. Yes, but how is it to be
done? Not, as they hold, by making the classes and the masses change
places. Not on the lines on which the society has hitherto worked.
There is only one way, and I make it my text to-night. Fortunately, it
presents no considerable difficulties.

"It is well known in medicine that the simplest--in other words, the
most natural--remedies may be the most efficacious.

"So it is in the social life. What shall we do, Society asks, with our
boys? I reply. Kill off the parents.

"There can be little doubt that forty-five years is long enough for a
man to live. Parents must see that. Youth is the time to have your
fling.

"Let us see how this plan would revolutionise the world. It would make
statesmen hurry up. At present, they are nearly fifty before you hear
of them. How can we expect the country to be properly governed by men
in their dotage?

"Again, take the world of letters. Why does the literary aspi