irator, which ends with these
words: "At last he was brought down to the ground by a club; after which
he was eaten."

We can discern many advantages to be derived from the introduction of
what we will call "_pates penitentiaires_."

There would be no waste of food.

The sentence of the judge would sound more civilized; for, instead of
hearing the odious words, "You shall be hanged by the neck until you
are dead," words would be pronounced somewhat like these: "You shall be
taken to Delmonico, and there and by him be served up on such a day, as
_scelerat en papillotes_."

There would be a greater readiness in jurors to convict interesting
criminals, who now-a-days cannot be found guilty,--especially were a law
passed that the jury should have the criminal. We read in the "Scottish
Criminal Trials," that a woman, clearly convicted of an atrocious
murder, was, nevertheless, found not guilty. The astonished lord
justiciary asked the foreman, how it was possible to find the prisoner
not guilty, with such overwhelming evidence, and was answered: "Becaase,
my laird, she is purty." Would not the delicacy of the prisoner have
been an additional reason for finding her guilty with Fijian jurors?

Fourthly, there would be an obvious national advantage in some
countries, in which the government is at one and the same time busily
engaged in finding cheap food for the people, and in transporting
annually many hundreds of political _suspects_ to killing colonies. It
is, indeed, surprising, that so sagacious and parental a government as
that of Napoleon the Third,--may His Majesty be long preserved for the
civilization of France, the peace of Europe, and the glory of mankind in
general!--it is surprising, that his all-providing and all-foreseeing
government has not long ago discovered how the craving of the national
stomach for food, and of the popular mind for political purification,
might be stilled by no longer transporting political offenders and
_suspects_ to French Guiana or Lambessa, where they uselessly and
ignobly perish, but by sentencing them, instead, to the enviable lot of
making a feast for their brethren. Would not every Socialist, receiving
permission thus to help feed society, exclaim: _C'est magnifique! mais
c'est sublime!_

When Robespierre was in the zenith of his guillotinacious glory, the
_bonnes_ would sit around the scaffold, minding children and knitting
stockings, to see the head of a marquis or of a sh