It doesn't, or anyhow it shouldn't, attempt to deal with trifling
peccadillos; it generally couldn't. It merely says that if a man's
conscience and idea of fair play aren't enough to make him behave
himself, why, then, when he gets too obstreperous we'll lock him up. And
different generations have had entirely different ideas about what was
too obstreperous to be overlooked. In the early days the law only
punished bloodshed and violence. Later on, its scope was increased,
until thousands of acts and omissions are now made criminal by statute.
But that explains why the fact that something is a sin doesn't
necessarily mean that it is a crime. The law is artificial and not
founded on any general attempt to prohibit what is unethical, but simply
to prevent what is immediately dangerous to life, limb and property."

"Which, after all, is a good thing--for it leaves us free to do as we
choose so long as we don't harm anybody else," said Miss Wiggin.

"Yet," her employer continued, "unfortunately--or perhaps fortunately
from our professional point of view--our lawmakers from time to time get
rather hysterical and pass such a multiplicity of statutes that nobody
knows whether he is committing crime or not."

"In this enlightened state," interposed Tutt, "it's a crime to advertise
as a divorce lawyer; to attach a corpse for payment of debt; to board a
train while it is in motion; to plant oysters without permission; or
without authority wear the badge of the Patrons of Husbandry."

"Really, one would have to be a student to avoid becoming a criminal,"
commented Miss Wiggin.

Mr. Tutt rose and, looking along one of the shelves, took down a volume
which he opened at a point marked by a burned match thrust between the
leaves.

"My old friend Joseph H. Choate," he remarked, "in his memorial of his
partner, Charles H. Southmayde, who was generally regarded as one of the
greatest lawyers of our own or any other generation, says, 'The
ever-growing list of misdemeanors, created by statute, disturbed him,
and he even employed counsel to watch for such statutes introduced into
the legislature--mantraps, as he called them--lest he might, without
knowing it, commit offenses which might involve the penalty of
imprisonment.'"

"We certainly riot in the printed word," said Miss Wiggin. "Do you know
that last year alone to interpret all those statutes and decide the
respective rights of our citizens the Supreme Court of this state wrote