The trust magnate would be told he should have had recourse to law. But in the south, no--Mr. Brann was rightfully assassinated. No law for him! Why? Because Mr. Brann assailed a few southern "josses." If Mr. Brann were justly slain then the next person who may dislike an editorial in the Picayune may kill its editor on the ground that the editorial--no matter how trifling in its imputation--is "carrion journalism." This law of chivalric private vengeance would justify a saturnalia of murder in every large city where gossip circulates in society. The chivalry of it! A man has written something he deems to be true and comments upon it as he deems it his duty in a quasi public capacity. Everyone who does not like the article can "take a pop at him." But, says the chivalrous Picayune, the law of private vengeance does not apply to anything save grave offenses in scurrility. Ah! The offensiveness of a criticism is only a matter of individual capacity for pain or humiliation. The trifle is only a trifle, because a man thinks it so. It may become a thing of importance at any time if you leave the decision of its importance solely to the judgment of the man who is going to resent it. Private vengeance makes for the creation of a caste of bulldozers. Let it become known in a community that criticism is an invitation to death, and who profit? Not the men of spotless reputation. Not the decent and pure elements of the community. Not at all. The ruffian gang in politics profits. The sanctimonious crooks profit. The seducer and betrayer, who is a dead-shot, profits. Every social and civic iniquity flourishes under this dominance of the law of private vengeance. All the people who deserve criticism are ready to shoot. They are the judges of their own spotless reputations. They will kill the man who spots it. So it is that in almost every southern city there has grown up a class of political brahmins absolutely secure from criticism that counts. Take New Orleans. The papers feared for years to breathe a breath of attack against the "spotless reputations" of its leaders. The story of the corruption that developed is too well known to require telling. After all, it is not the people of spotless reputation who are assailed in the papers. Whenever anyone is assailed the chances are there is ground for the assault, and there is at least a prima facie evidence that attack or exposure is necessary in the interest of public morality. Any reputation would be spotless if no one dared attack it. If it were high crime to assail people vigorously how would dishonor, debauchery, fraud and crime in high places ever be brought to light. If the right of private vengeance shall prevail in any community then the ruffians and blackguards may pursue their nefarious ends unhampered because of the terror they inspire by threats to shoot their critics. This recognition of the right of the individual to punish, by the infliction