That great shocks and dread maladies may lop off a limb of the human mind and leave the other portions perfect, nay, may even wrench the human soul into one narrow groove, is the common lesson of the clinic and the mad-house. An intellect, keen, powerful, and yet devoid of any sense of moral obligation, would be no passing wonder to the skilled physician; for no one knows better than he that often in the house of the soul there are great chambers locked and barred and whole passages sealed up in the dark. Nor do men marvel that great minds concentrated on some mighty labor grow utterly oblivious to human relations and see and care for naught save the result which they are seeking. The chemist forgets that the diamond is precious, and burns it; the surgeon forgets that his patient is living and that the knife hurts as it cuts. Might not the great lawyer, striving tirelessly with the problems of men, come at last to see only the problem, with the people in it as pieces on a chess-board? It may be objected that the writer has prepared here a text-book for the shrewd knave. To this it is answered that, if he instructs the enemies, he also warns the friends of law and order; and that Evil has never yet been stronger because the sun shone on it. It should not be forgotten that this book deals with the law as it is and with no fanciful interpretation of it. The colors are woven into a gray warp of ancient and well settled legal principles, obtaining with full virtue in almost every state. The formula for every wrong in this book is as practical as the plan of an architect and may be played out by any skilful villain. Nor should it be presumed that the instances dealt with are exhaustive. The writer has presented but a few of the simpler and more conspicuous; there is, in truth, many another. Indeed the wonder grows upon him that the thief should stay up at night to steal. Wheeling, W. Va., June 1, 1896. I--THE CORPUS DELICTI _[See Lord Hale's Rule, Russell on Crimes. For the law in New York see 18th N. Y. Reports, 179; also N. Y. Reports, 49* page 137. The doctrine there laid down obtains in almost every State, with the possible exception of a few Western States, where the decisions are muddy.]_ I. THAT man Mason," said Samuel Walcott, "is the mysterious member of this club. He is more than that; he is the mysterious man of New York." "I was much surprised to see him," answered his companion, Marshall St. Clair, of the great law firm of Seward, St. Clair, & De Muth. "I had lost track of him since he went to Paris as counsel for the American stockholders of the Canal Company. When did he come back to the States?"