Sir James Hales, the son of a Baron of the Exchequer, was a Justice of the Common Pleas, a suicide and ergo, a felon. For, “while walking through divers streets and highways of Cambridge, he did wantonly enter a ditch flowing there-through and himself therein feloniously and voluntarily drowned.” In those days of simple justice such an atrocious crime was, though falling perhaps a little short of rank burglary, at least felony without benefit of clergy. This same spirit of simple justice not only denied him christian burial but also escheated his goods and chattels to the Crown, leaving his guilty widow, guilty through her marriage to such an atrocious criminal, penniless. In 1550, Lady Hales caused an action of trespass to be brought against one Petit, a lessee holding under the Crown, claiming that Sir James’ alleged crime was not consummate until after his death and “the dead can do no wrong.” “The death precedes the forfeiture,” argued the widow’s learned council, “for until the death is fully consummate he is not a felon; for if he had killed another he should not have been a felon until the other had been dead and for the same reason he cannot be a felon until the death of himself be fully had and consummate.” The sergeants for the Crown insisted that the crime lay in the act done in the life-time which was the cause of the death. “The act consists of three parts: the imagination, the resolution and the perfection. The death is only a sequel to the act.” “_It must be ‘se offendendo;’ it cannot be else. For here lies the point; if I drown myself wittingly, it argues an act: and an act hath three branches, it is, to act, to do, and to perform: argal, she drowned herself wittingly._” Sir Anthony Brown, in delivering the judgment of the Court, said: “Sir James Hales is dead; and how came he to his death? It may be answered, By drowning. And who drowned him? Sir James Hales. And when did he drown him? In his life-time. So that Sir James Hales, being alive, caused Sir James Hales to die, and the act of the living man was the death of the dead man.” “_If the man go to this water, and drown himself, it is, will he, nill he, he goes—mark you that; but if the water come to him and drown him, he drowns not himself; argal, he that is not guilty of his own death shortens not his own life._” “_But is this law?_” “_Ay, marry, is’t! crowner’s quest law._” PRESTON KENDALL. THE CRICKET: A FABLE. A poor little cricket hidden in the flowery grass, regarded a butterfly, flying o’er the prairie. The insect shone with bright colors. Blue, purple and gold sparkled on his wings. Young, beautiful, little beau! He ran from flower to flower, taking and quitting all, even the most beautiful.