Assassinations from ambush are always difficult to prove and alibis are manufactured at small cost. Perjury, too, is common. It is the favorite weapon of the defense in such cases. Then the successful assassin is shrewd enough to conduct himself usually, though not always, in such manner as to have friends among all classes of people, even among the best. Many of the worst men have used the cloak of religion, or church-membership, to hide their black hearts. The masonic lodge has been prostituted by such men of shrewd deceit. It is no assurance of a man's goodness to find him sitting in a church pew on a Sunday, with the Bible in his hand, for even within the holy sanctum of the Lord the foulest conspiracies and crimes have been hatched in the brains of men. This does not apply to Breathitt County or Kentucky alone. Some of the most noted feudists never fired a gun themselves, but in their daily intercourse kept themselves unspotted before the world, and used willing, paid tools to accomplish their bloody ends. Such men always indignantly deny any imputation of wrong-doing. They have been known to condemn in the loudest and the most emphatic terms outrages against the peace and dignity of the State, the result of their own planning. The writer once pointed out to a gentleman from another state a certain chieftain of murderers. He shook his head. "That man a murderer?" he said. "Why, he is the most amiable person with whom I have come in contact with in a long time. That man has brains, he has education. That man is wrongfully accused, I know. No red-handed murderer could look you in the eye like that, or counterfeit the innocence imprinted upon his countenance." The truth was, this particular outlaw had never murdered any one with his own hands, but he had been the directing, managing spirit of foul conspiracies and of wholesale assassinations. This adoption of the mask of deceit serves another purpose. Since you can never tell by a man's looks what is in his heart, citizens grow suspicious of one another, and fear to express their opinions. That this vastly increases the difficulty of concerted action looking toward the eradication of crime, is apparent. Reverting again to the murder lust: What is it's origin? What keeps it aflame? What inspires it? Is it that the savage of the stone age is not yet dead? That the veneer of civilization has in all those thousands of years not become thick enough to prevent its wearing off so readily? Perhaps. At least, it seems so. Let us quote a recent example of this fearful blood lust:-- Jackson, Ky., Aug. 29, 1916.