What was the “one third extra”? Money due? No. Was it a theft, then? Putting aside the “one third extra,” what was the _remainder_ of the exacted indemnity, if collected from persons not _known_ to owe it, and without Christian and civilized forms of procedure? Was _it_ theft, was it robbery? In America it would be that; in Christian Europe it would be that. I have great confidence in Dr. Smith’s judgment concerning this detail, and he calls it “theft and extortion”--even in China; for he was talking about the “thirteen times” at the time that he gave it that strong name.[15] It is his idea that, when you make guilty and innocent villagers pay the appraised damages, and then make them pay thirteen times that, besides, the _thirteen_ stand for “theft and extortion.” Then what does _one third_ extra stand for? Will he give that one third a name? Is it Modified Theft and Extortion? Is that it? The girl who was rebuked for having borne an illegitimate child excused herself by saying, “But it is such a _little_ one.” When the “thirteen-times-extra” was alleged, it stood for theft and extortion, in Dr. Smith’s eyes, and he was shocked. But when Dr. Ament showed that he had taken only a _third_ extra, instead of thirteenfold, Dr. Smith was relieved, content, happy. I declare I cannot imagine why. That editor--quoted at the head of this article--was happy about it, too. I cannot think why. He thought I ought to “make for the amen corner and formulate a prompt apology.” To whom, and for what? It is too deep for me. To Dr. Smith, the “thirteenfold extra” clearly stood for “theft and extortion,” and he was right, distinctly right, indisputably right. He manifestly thinks that when it got scaled away down to a mere “one third,” a little thing like that was something other than “theft and extortion.” Why? Only the Board knows! I will try to explain this difficult problem, so that the Board can get an idea of it. If a pauper owes me a dollar, and I catch him unprotected and make him pay me fourteen dollars, thirteen of it is “theft and extortion”; if I make him pay only a dollar and thirty-three and a third cents the thirty-three and a third cents are “theft and extortion” just the same. I will put it in another way, still simpler. If a man owes me one dog--any kind of a dog, the breed is of no consequence--and I----But let it go; the Board would never understand it. It _can’t_ understand these involved and difficult things. But _if_ the Board could understand, then I could furnish some more instruction--which is this. The one third, obtained by “theft and extortion,” is _tainted money_, and cannot be purified even by defraying “church expenses” and “supporting widows and orphans” with it. It has to be restored to the people it was taken from.