Whisky and not death is the greatest leveler with the dirt. But to see a drunken woman--Good God! Nature is partial to a man. She has made some laws for him she has not made for woman. She has filled him with passion and strength and capacity for work and great things. She overlooks it, perhaps, when he steps aside, under the burning law she has forced on him for reproduction, and she sighs and smiles when he drowns his strenuousness now and then in the forgetfulness of the cup. He may do all that, and if his wife be pure still may he sire sons who will be brave and honest, and daughters who will be pure and noble. But let the woman be weak and fall, and see how quickly nature revenges herself for the desecration of her unwritten law by throwing back on humanity sons who are thieves and daughters who are impure. This is an unwritten law, but it proves that the mother is the great moral force of the world. Let her violate it and the punishment comes quickly on the race. As I looked at this woman I could not help thinking: “I hope, as one who, interested in stock, is more interested in the human race, that you carry in your life that penalty of impureness--barrenness. For it were better for mankind that such as you should never be mothers, to fill prison pens with thieves and forgers and bawdy houses with painted Magdalenes. Indeed, it is up to you to pass off the stage of life and cease to encumber an earth on which not one single womanly law is left you to fill. The honest matron of the noble horse brings forth yearly and within the sacred laws of nature an animal that is the pride of man and the glory of his kind. The gentle mother of the dairy is an inspiration and a blessing to the earth. The very brood sow of the pen suckles her hungry brood begot in honorable wedlock. But you, O, being of a higher world, O breeder of immortal beings, made in the image of God and endowed with the reason of the angels, you from whom nature expects so much, you fall below all of these and brand yourself the harlot of humanity!” * * * * * We want a good live agent in every town in the United States for “Trotwood’s Monthly.” Write for terms to agents. Address Trotwood Publishing Company, Nashville, Tenn. * * * * * _Depravity is not so much a creature of inheritance as of environment._ Geers and Walter Direct The most talked-of pacer in the light harness world to-day is Walter Direct. The greatest living reinsman is Ed F. Geers, his breeder, joint owner, trainer and driver. The object of this sketch is to tell the story of these two--the one a horse, the other a man. For when it is all sifted down at last, it will be found that there are many parallel lines between a great race horse and a great driver. Each to succeed must possess certain qualities in common which make for success. [Illustration: ED GEERS The silent man from Tennessee.]