a clamour for measures of repression. I do not think there is in any other part of the world, or that there ever has been in any civilised country, such shootings as have filled the land to which I allude with bloodshed. It may be said with truth that there never have been and that there are not any similar conditions in the world. But the absence of any great abiding movement for the correction and suppression of violence and lawlessness cannot be so readily accounted for or excused. There appears to be a sort of admiration for these border ruffians among portions of the American Press and public. Even a staid paper like the _Republican_, in an article headed "South-East Missouri: the Reign of Lawlessness about Ended," on the destruction of the New Madrid gang, writes of one who was sent to the penitentiary for thirty years "as a living monument of a bold and brave lot of desperate men who had started out to make money by robbing their fellow-men. This swift and stern justice speaks well for this portion of the States, which has had for a long time more than its full quota of these lawless characters. Myers and Brown will be hung on the 15th July, and their execution will be witnessed by thousands of South-East Missourians." The spectacle of the hanging will not do much good, if it be like the execution at Colorado Springs, which was advertised as a sort of picnic or pleasure excursion. One advertisement ran, "After the hanging to-morrow drink La Salle beer; it will cool your nerves." "Highway robbery here has about run its course, and the people are determined that lawlessness in those regions shall no longer go unwhipped of justice." Very good. But, why not sooner and long ago? "Rhodes was hung by Judge Lynch when captured at the killing of young Laforge in New Madrid;" but the gang killed the sheriff and wounded the deputy-sheriff and collector before the people arose in their majesty to squelch them. A criminal is invested with a notoriety which, next to popular estimation, is valued by some men, and it is noted with interest that "Gilbert" (one pitiless murderer) is a Catholic, and that "Rosengrants" (another homicide) "inclines towards the Episcopalians." A Leadville doctor visits one of them to ask for his body. "No, sirree, you can't have my body; I'll be hanged first!" And the public laugh at the lively sally, and admire the _sangfroid_ of the wit! In fact, there is a _tendresse_ for crime in this grim humour. A Texan who would "fill the skin" of a stranger "with lead" for aspersing Texas would no doubt heartily enjoy the description of the early population of the Lone Star State, which I quote from the Texas Press. "In the early days of the Republic, and even after annexation, many of the white men who came here had strong sanitary reasons for a change of climate, having been threatened with throat disease so sudden and dangerous that the slightest delay in moving to a new and milder climate would have been