othing of the conditions against which Balmascheff and his kind are
warring. The Balmascheffs would prefer to gain their ends by peaceful
means, but know from experience that life is too short for success.
They do not kill for love of killing, or the notoriety that attaches
to it, but that the lot of those whose cause they champion may be made
merely endurable. Whenever the law is wilfully and successfully
disregarded that a minority may be favored there will be found a means
by which this dereliction is brought to the attention not only of the
lawbreakers, but of the world, and as the latter, in all its
divisions, contains lawbreakers who consider themselves above or
beyond the law the punishment of one is usually followed by the
punishment of others, for lawbreakers of a colossal type--like their
executioners--think in common and recognize no cleavage of
nationality. Balmascheff may not have killed the system which was
represented by M. Sipiaguine, but he chopped away a limb. Unless the
trunk is replaced by one that better befits the age it, too, will be
chopped away.

If this be an age of reason, as is claimed for it, men who are
furnished with a capacity to think cannot be prevented from putting
their thoughts into execution. Though Balmascheff was executed on
Friday according to biblical and Russian law, there are many
Balmascheffs in the world, and it is well for the world that this is
so.

Mistake in Vocation

A woman writer who considers herself a Realist says in a story
published recently: "I found a letter in my mail and read it as I
prepared my morning coffee." This is an impossible feat. She may have
prepared the coffee and then read the letter, or read the letter and
then prepared the coffee, but she did not do both simultaneously
unless she were, not a realist, but an acrobat.

* * * * *

Foreign Devils Again

Among the many reforms foisted upon China by the Powers is a college.
At the head of this college is a Foreign Devil and among its
professors are six Foreign Devils. The court of last resort, however,
is the Governor of Shantung, who is a native of China. He, quite
recently, filled the Foreign Devils with indignation because he
expelled from the college a student who refused to subscribe to the
teachings of Confucius, who was a wise as well as a learned man. The
Foreign Devils transferred some of their indignation to Mr. Conger,
the United States Minister,