is destined to become extinct, I am not one of those who
would accelerate his extinction. The time has not yet
come for remedial legislation, or the application of the
criminal law. Even in obstinate cases where pronounced
delusions in reference to plants, animals, and natural
phenomena are seen to exist, it is better that we should
do nothing that might occasion a mistaken remorse. The
inevitable natural evolution which is thus shaping the
mould of human thought may safely be left to its own
course.

Self-made Men

They were both what we commonly call successful business
men--men with well-fed faces, heavy signet rings on
fingers like sausages, and broad, comfortable waistcoats,
a yard and a half round the equator. They were seated
opposite each other at a table of a first-class restaurant,
and had fallen into conversation while waiting to give
their order to the waiter. Their talk had drifted back
to their early days and how each had made his start in
life when he first struck New York.

"I tell you what, Jones," one of them was saying, "I
shall never forget my first few years in this town. By
George, it was pretty uphill work! Do you know, sir, when
I first struck this place, I hadn't more than fifteen
cents to my name, hadn't a rag except what I stood up
in, and all the place I had to sleep in--you won't
believe it, but it's a gospel fact just the same--was an
empty tar barrel. No, sir," he went on, leaning back and
closing up his eyes into an expression of infinite
experience, "no, sir, a fellow accustomed to luxury like
you has simply no idea what sleeping out in a tar barrel
and all that kind of thing is like."

"My dear Robinson," the other man rejoined briskly, "if
you imagine I've had no experience of hardship of that
sort, you never made a bigger mistake in your life. Why,
when I first walked into this town I hadn't a cent, sir,
not a cent, and as for lodging, all the place I had for
months and months was an old piano box up a lane, behind
a factory. Talk about hardship, I guess I had it pretty
rough! You take a fellow that's used to a good warm tar
barrel and put him into a piano box for a night or two,
and you'll see mighty soon--"

"My dear fellow," Robinson broke in with some irritation,
"you merely show that you don't know what a tar barrel's
like. Why, on winter nights, when you'd be shut in there
in your piano box just as snug as you please, I used to
lie awake shivering, with the