ry coming to? they
cried in double leaded type. After the embezzling by life
insurance officers, the rascality of the railroads, the looting of
city treasuries, the greed of the Trusts, the grafting of the
legislators, had arisen a new and more serious scandal--the
corruption of the Judiciary. The last bulwark of the nation had
fallen, the country lay helpless at the mercy of legalized
sandbaggers. Even the judges were no longer to be trusted, the
most respected one among them all had been unable to resist the
tempter. The Supreme Court, the living voice of the Constitution,
was honeycombed with graft. Public life was rotten to the core!

Neither the newspapers nor the public stopped to ascertain the
truth or the falsity of the charges against Judge Rossmore. It was
sufficient that the bribery story furnished the daily sensation
which newspaper editors and newspaper readers must have. The world
is ever more prompt to believe ill rather than good of a man, and
no one, except in Rossmore's immediate circle of friends,
entertained the slightest doubt of his guilt. It was common
knowledge that the "big interests" were behind the proceedings,
and that Judge Rossmore was a scapegoat, sacrificed by the System
because he had been blocking their game. If Rossmore had really
accepted the bribe, and few now believed him spotless, he deserved
all that was coming to him. Senator Roberts was very active in
Washington preparing the case against Judge Rossmore. The latter
being a democrat and "the interests" controlling a Republican
majority in the House, it was a foregone conclusion that the
inquiry would be against him, and that a demand would at once be
made upon the Senate for his impeachment.

Almost prostrated by the misfortune which had so suddenly and
unexpectedly come upon him, Judge Rossmore was like a man
demented. His reason seemed to be tottering, he spoke and acted
like a man in a dream. Naturally he was entirely incapacitated for
work and he had applied to Washington to be temporarily relieved
from his judicial duties. He was instantly granted a leave of
absence and went at once to his home in Madison Avenue, where he
shut himself up in his library, sitting for hours at his desk
wrestling with documents and legal tomes in a pathetic endeavour
to find some way out, trying to elude this net in which unseen
hands had entangled him.

What an end to his career! To have struggled and achieved for half
a century, to have