Bosschieter and the Turner cases. Those Jersey murderers were all convicted; that man Turner walks the earth, unmolested, not even lynched. The public sentiment of New Jersey was clear that an offense against the humblest foreigner was an offense against the Commonwealth; but the blood of that poor black woman cries in vain to the courts of Alabama; and the thousands of people down there who feel furious about such matters are so far helpless. The states by their statutes of false pretenses are partners in those iniquities, but the federal government has done its best in prosecutions. Between fifty and a hundred indictments have been brought. Federal Judge Boyd, of North Carolina, said of his district: "There has been evidence here of cruelty so excessive as to put to shame the veriest barbarian that ever lived." Federal Judge Brawley, of South Carolina, has held void an act of that State making breach of labor contract a misdemeanor. Convictions have been obtained in half a dozen states, and it is altogether likely that the Supreme Court of the United States will confirm this good work by holding invalid all state statutes which attempt to enforce a debt by sending a man to prison, or still more by selling his services to a master. Here, as in so many other phases of this question, the troublous thing is not that there should be cruelty and oppression or servitude. Gangs of Italians under a padrone in the North are sometimes little better than bondmen. Masters of almshouses and reform schools will sometimes be brutal unless their institutions are frequently and carefully inspected. The real difficulty is that the superior race permits its laws and courts to be used for the benefit of cruel and oppressive men; that public sentiment did not prevent the peonage trials by making the cases impossible; that a federal judge in Alabama should be assailed by members of the bar and members of Congress because he stopped these practices. Peonage is an offense which cannot be committed by Negroes; it requires the capital, the prestige, and the commercial influence of white men.