It is probable, at least it is possible, that a “victim’s” sum of suffering from his instantaneous pervasion with enough of the fluid to kill him is no less than if it were leisurely rilled through him a little faster than he could bear until he should die of it that way. Theories of the painlessness of sudden death appear to be based mostly upon the fact that those who undergo it make no entries of their sensations in their diaries. It is to be wished that they would be more thoughtful and less selfish. The man smitten by lightning, or widely distributed by a hitch in the proceedings at a powder mill, owes a duty to his fellow men of which he commonly appears to have but an imperfect sense. A careful and analytic record of his sensations at every stage of his mischance would be a precious contribution to medical literature. Published under some such title as _A Diary of Sudden Death; by a Public-Spirited Observer on the Inside_ it would serve many useful purposes, and also profit the publisher. What we most need—next to more doctors at executions—is some person having experience of the matter, to tell us fairly in inoffensive English, interlarded with “Soche-sorte Latin as physickers doe use,” just how it feels to be dead all over at once. A GHOST IN THE UNMAKING Belief in ghosts is natural, general and comforting. In many minds it is cherished as a good working substitute for religion; in others it appears to take the place of morality. It is rather more convenient than either, for it may be disavowed and even reviled without exposing oneself to suspicion and reproach. As an intellectual conviction it is, in fact, not a very common phenomenon among people of thought and education; nevertheless the number of civilized and enlightened human beings who can pass through a graveyard at midnight without whistling is not notably greater than the number who are unable to whistle. It may be noted here as a distinction with a difference that belief in ghosts is not the same thing as faith in them. Many men believe in the adversary of souls, but comparatively few, and they not among our best citizens, have any faith in him. Similarly, the belief in ghosts has reference only to their existence, not to their virtues. They are, indeed, commonly thought to harbor the most evil designs against the continuity of peaceful thoughts and the integrity of sleep. Their malevolence has in it a random and wanton quality which invests it with a peculiarly lively interest: there is no calculating upon whom it will fall: the just and the unjust alike are embraced in its baleful jurisdiction and subjected to the humiliating indignity of displaying the white feather. And this leads us directly back to the incident by which these remarks have the honor to be suggested.