In my opinion, the League made two serious errors: First, in Article III of its constitution where it excepted "non-justiciable" cases from the control of the proposed league. It is unsafe to devise any law or rule of action which permits of too numerous or too ill-defined exceptions. If criminal law exempted non-justiciable questions from the jurisdiction of courts, no criminal, even the most heartless murderer, could be convicted. The ingenuity of lawyers could always prove some non-justiciable element entered into the crime. The same would be true of nations. Those most powerful and best prepared for war would assume greater latitude in defining what was justiciable and would show less punctiliousness in endeavoring to establish their definition than nations smaller and less well prepared. Statesmen and diplomats working in secret would easily show any question about to lead to war as "non-justiciable" and not to be presented to the international court set up by a league composed of many nations too weak to be respected by the powerful. The second mistake was to yield, as an organization, to the allurements of "Trial by Combat," and to endeavor, as a league, to induce our nation to intervene in the present war. Members might take this course as individuals, but, when they made it the act of a league for _peace_ they stultified the league, and in my opinion, destroyed any great power for usefulness the league might have in the future. [Illustration: DUELLING PISTOLS BROUGHT FROM ENGLAND BY NANNIE'S GREAT UNCLE.] TRIAL BY COMBAT PERSONAL TRIAL BY COMBAT I hope to show a close analogy between the personal trial by combat legalized throughout Europe for many hundreds of years (now legal nowhere, practically abandoned in all civilized countries), and international trial by combat, still existing throughout the world. Describing conditions before the middle ages, George Nielson, in his "Trial by Combat," says: "=Nothing was too high for it, nothing too low. It would establish the virtue of a queen, test the veracity of a witness, or re argue the decision of a judge; it would hang a traitor, a murderer, or a thief; it would settle a disputed point of succession, give a widow her dower, or prove a questioned charter. From such high arguments as these, it descended with equal ease to discuss debts of every kind and of whatever amount, and a French monarch earned a title as a reformer when he disallowed it where the principal sum in plea was under five sous.="