To hire a man to kill another is a queer way to teach men to respect life. That our fathers did it is true, and we have taken over the practice from them. I do not think it probable that our fathers were any greater fools than we are, but their circumstances were different; not to speak of the fact that we have had handed on to us by them an accumulation of experience in civil life which they had not time to absorb. We may be no better than they were, but they have not failed to contribute to make us better off, and their ways of doing things are not suitable to the altered circumstances in which we find ourselves. They were more worried by their fighting men than we are, and were always liable to be assailed by some lord or other whose honourable occupation was arms and who was industrious in the pursuit of it. He or somebody like him professed to protect the worker and ensure him the fruits of his labour--less discount. The fighting man has always made this profession; but he never protects the worker from the worker; he protects the worker from some other warrior who may be a greater nuisance--or may not. Now he is under the direction of the law, and is not allowed to make war on his own account. The survivals that do are criminals. In the good old days the governor was often busily engaged and had no time to bother with offenders. The pit or the gallows were for them, unless they could be depended on to refrain from troubling him and pay him for letting them work. Part of the time he was himself a prisoner in his castle--and a not very sanitary or comfortable prison it was--and at other times he was acting as warder over some other lord whom he had besieged. The easiest way to deal with unruly persons was to hang them to a tree and leave them there; they deserved it, and even if they did not, they might do so; in any case they were a good riddance. Now we are more settled and less summary in our dealings with each other. We have long ceased to employ the hangman except in cases of murder, and even then the penalty is seldom inflicted in Scotland; for it is repugnant to the feelings of most juries, and they only call killing "murder" when their feelings of indignation get the upper hand.