For many years the old cradle was going most of the time. Again and again a big baby was taken out of the cradle and a small one put in. She sang as only the mother can, whose child is born of pain and baptized with tears. It was a lullaby sweet and low, like hum of bees in summertime; a song in a nursery, and not in a concert hall; a song not for the many but for just one pair of little ears which heard and loved and understood. It was rock, and sing, for nap by day and long sleep by night; rock and sing when well and glad or sick and sad. One day the cradle was stilled, the little brother, Gordon, was sound asleep, his long lashes cast shadows on the upturned cheek, and the little fingers had changed a red rose for a white lily. His cradle had rocked him nearer to the tomb for “birth is nothing but our death begun.” Dear cradle of childhood, that rested so many tired bodies and soothed so many hearts. Today the old cradle is in the dark garret and the tired mother rests in the dark grave. The hands that laid the pillow and spread the cover have stopped their work; the foot that rocked it has finished its journey; the face that hovered above it is gone and the song she sang is silent. Baby boys and girls are men and women now, but they can never forget the old cradle. How often when body, mind and heart ache we toss and cry during the long night hours, and wish that mother could hug, kiss and put us in the old cradle again and rock and sing us to sleep. * * * * * We note with amusement that certain of the sanctimonious sect still are passing “resolutions” about the Dempsey-Carpentier fistic embroglio, deploring the same as a “disgrace to our civilization.” These are the same “birds” who would have us scrap our navy and reduce the army to a squad of boy scouts with Easter lilies in their hands. A “prize fight” is no more brutal than any other manifestation of power; no more “disgraceful” in what we call civilization than any other application of force. Force rules the universe; nothing can resist it. It would take physical force to maintain any law against prize fighting just as it takes physical force to keep the bathing beauties from discarding their two-ounce outfits as too burdensome to wear. Prize fighting is a “disgrace to civilization” only because it is mercenary, venal, sordid; yet we loan our money on mortgages and sell our goods at a profit with never a thought of disagreeable civilization. The fighter sells his ability to clout another prize fighter on the chin before the other bambino of the bulging biceps bangs him on his own proboscis. The power of the state is behind all human law and activity—the threat of physical enforcement keeps Pedro, Jr., out of Neighbor Jones’ alfalfa patch. Society is protected by force and sometimes with arms. Our civilization is merely armed resistance to “barbarism” and the brutality is always under the thin pretense of “culture” and “refinement.”