represent him in public is buncombe, but content with the shadow for the substance, and wearing a chip on his shoulder as a warning to those who would assert that we are not really as virtuous and as noble as our spokesmen have declared. For instance, to return to the concrete, consider the plight of a police commissioner in most of our large cities. Those interested in the suppression of vice appear before the legislature and urge the maintenance of a vigorous policy. Acts are passed by the law-makers manifesting the intention of the community to wage vigorous war against the social evil and the sale of liquor, and prescribing unequivocal regulations. The appointing power is urged to select a strong man to enforce these laws. Supposing he does, what follows? Murmurs and contemptuous abuse. Murmurs from what is known as the hard-headed, common-sense portion of the community, who complain that the strong man entrusted with authority does not show tact; that what was expected of him was judicious surface enforcement of the law sufficient to beguile reformers and cranks, and give a semblance of improvement, not strict, literal compliance. They will tell you that the social evil can no more be suppressed than water can be prevented from running down hill, and that the explicit language of the statutes was framed for the benefit of clergymen, and that no one else with common-sense supposed it would be enforced to the letter by any intelligent official. The very legislators who voted to pass the laws will shrug their shoulders rancorously and confide to you the same thing; yet in another breath assert to their constituents that they have fought the fight in defence of white-robed chastity and the sacred sanctity of the home. Now, is this Americanism, the very best Americanism? Surely not. It has an Anglo-Saxon flavor about it which it is easy to recognize as foreign and imported. Englishmen have been asserting for centuries that they were fighting the fight in defence of white-robed chastity and the sanctity of the home, to the amusement of the rest of the world, for in spite of the fact that the laws demand a vigorous policy and the British matron and the Sunday-school Unions declare that the home is safe, those familiar with facts know that London is one of the most disgustingly impure cities in the world, and that the youth let loose upon its streets is in very much the same predicament as Daniel in the den of lions, without the same certainty of rescue. And why? Because the hard-headed, common-sense British public sanctions hypocrisy. They tell you that they are doing their utmost to crush the evil. This is for the marines, the British matron, and the Sunday-school Unions. But let a strong man attempt to banish from the streets the shoals of women of loose character, and what an unmistakable murmur would arise. How long would he remain in office?