Sir,—Towards the close of the excellent article on the Taylor trial in your issue for October 31, you say that people never will be, nor ought to be, persuaded “to treat criminals simply as vermin which they destroy, and not as men who are to be punished.” Certainly not, sir! Who ever talked or thought of regarding criminals “simply” as anything; (or innocent people either, if there be any)? But regarding criminals complexly and accurately, they are partly men, partly vermin; what is human in them you must punish—what is vermicular, abolish. Anything between—if you can find it—I wish you joy of, and hope you may be able to preserve it to society. Insane persons, horses, dogs, or cats, become vermin when they become dangerous. I am sorry for darling Fido, but there is no question about what is to be done with him. Yet, I assure you, sir, insanity is a tender point with me. One of my best friends has just gone mad; and all the rest say I am mad myself. But, if ever I murder anybody—and, indeed, there are numbers of people I should like to murder—I won’t say that I ought to be hanged; for I think nobody but a bishop or a bank director can ever be rogue enough to deserve hanging; but I particularly, and with all that is left me of what I imagine to be sound mind, request that I may be immediately shot. I am, Sir, your obedient servant, J. Ruskin. Corpus Christi College, Oxford, November 2, (1872). III. I am very grateful to the friend who sends me the following note on my criticism of Dickens in last letter:— “It does not in the least detract from the force of Fors, p. 253, line 18 (November), that there was a real ‘Miss Flite,’ whom I have seen, and my father well remembers; and who used to haunt the Courts in general, and sometimes to address them. She had been ruined, it was believed; and Dickens must have seen her, for her picture is like the original. But he knew nothing about her, and only constructed her after his fashion. She cannot have been any prototype of the character of Miss Flite. I never heard her real name. Poor thing! she did not look sweet or kind, but crazed and spiteful; and unless looks deceived Dickens, he just gave careless, false witness about her. Her condition seemed to strengthen your statement in its very gist,—as Law had made her look like Peter Peebles. “My father remembers little Miss F., of whom nothing was known. She always carried papers and a bag, and received occasional charity from lawyers. “Gridley’s real name was Ikey;—he haunted Chancery. Another, named Pitt, in the Exchequer;—broken attorneys, both.”