all of which the bookkeeper knows and takes chances. Expert accountants claim that if employers did their duty towards their clerks their criminal careers would be checked in their incipiency and their defalcations reduced to a minimum. There is a false idea that bonding a man necessarily protects his employer. The idea of a firm in bonding an employee is principally to get the benefit of the investigation of the man by the insurance company and of the subsequent supervision of him. But the bond itself is small protection. For instance, a bank in a small Massachusetts town had its cashier bonded for $20,000, and in the course of a few years he got away with $600,000. In this case the previous investigation may have been all right, but the subsequent supervision was not effective. In fact, the man was getting a salary of not more than $2,000 a year and was living at the rate of $25,000. All his neighbors remembered this-once he was caught. The negligence here lay not only with the board of directors but with the community. If, once the man had begun to splurge, some one had put a flea in the ear of the directors, that particular town would have been half a million dollars the richer. There is a notorious lack of vigilance in the management of charitable and fraternal societies and building loan associations, since in these the treasurers are always personally known to everybody. I is a common thing, when an officer of such an organization goes wrong, to find that the auditing committee has been notoriously lax in its methods. In many cases no one even takes the trouble to call at the banks occasionally to see if the balances are as stated. A few months ago the treasurer of a building loan association in a town just outside of Boston was found to be $5,000 short in his accounts, which was just the amount of his bond. The officers wrote on to the fidelity company; stated that they had examined their treasurer's books, but could not find how the shortage had occurred; believed the man to be all right, and asked the company to continue on his bond. But this was refused, on the ground that the man was either dishonest or so lax in his methods that the result would be the same, so far as the insurance company was concerned. So they paid the loss on the bond and let it go at that. Notwithstanding this refusal and warning, the treasurer got another bonding company to insure him, was retained in his position, and within two years was found to be $7,500 short-another case of rank negligence! In respect to carelessness of employers, a criminal court judge said to me a short time ago: "There is scarcely a day passes when a case does not come before me in which the complaining witness is not more deserving of punishment than the defendant." An example of the rankest negligence is that of the well-to-do man who gets drunk and reduces himself to a helpless mass. He not only becomes a burden to the police, but is easy prey for the jackals of society who prey upon just such persons. He either curries favor with strangers or he frequents the resorts where denizens of the underworld hang out. The thief who specializes in drunks is perhaps the most loathsome crook of all-but he is not the meanest. The meanest one is he who trades on the gullibility and negligence of people of small means, such as clergymen, school-teachers, and the general run of depositors in savings banks. One would scarcely expect to find carelessness among people who have had to sweat blood for the pennies they save, yet it is there to an inconceivable degree. The crook knows it, and he victimizes them through the medium of fake oil or mining stocks and the like. The curious thing is, they fall for his play again and again. He offers his stock at a few cents a share, and the people take the gambler's chance that some day one of these long shots will turn out a winner. They can't realize that it's absolutely a brace game. Nor will they take warning. As a matter of fact, a good many of the great savings banks have invited their depositors to confer with their officers before making any investments, and this with no other motive than to save them from loss through just this kind of swindling. But it is doubtful if this avails much. Cowardice no less than negligence is responsible for the continued existence of the highwayman. As a matter of fact, that gentleman is a great bluff. In case one is held up by a highwayman the best thing is to resist him. If you do, in ninety-eight cases out of a hundred he'll run away. Always remember that this man wants your money and not your blood. It is of the greatest importance to him that he avoid violence. He may use his gun to threaten, and if he discharges it, it is only to intimidate. Shooting will create an alarm which the thief dreads above all things, and bloodshed will increase any possible sentence against him by many years. A curious fact is that a highwayman will run away under resistance from a woman much quicker than from a man. She not only has more nerve, but is more terrible in her fighting than the male of the species. Joseph Taylor, the head of the auto bandits, who was recently arrested with his crew in this city, and who always operated at the point of a pistol, told me that it was his absolute order to his men that if anybody offered resistance, not to shoot, but to back away. A little calmness in the presence of a burglar is often very effective. The best thing to do with such a one who enters your house at night time is not to show fear, but to reason with him. Treat him like a human being. You might say to him, "Some of those articles belong to my wife and can't be duplicated. They were given to her by her mother or sister, and have small value except to her. Leave them alone and I will give you money instead." Or you might say, "Yours is a nerve-taxing business-you've got to be keyed up all the time-now I've got some good old rye down in the diningroom-let's go down and have some." Such talk is very disconcerting to a burglar-in fact, any talk is. He doesn't know at what moment it may attract attention. He wants silence. In most cases, such perfect calmness will result in the retreat of the man without spoils, or at least with only a small part of the plunder he came to get. A friend of mine asked one of these men, "How did you come to pick out my place? I don't want to criticise your work, but I'd just like to know. Did anybody put you on?" This led to general talk, and they finally went downstairs and had a drink. But it's very easy to force an intruder to shoot by a sudden alarm, a shriek, a rush for the telephone, or an assault that must be suppressed by the use of the gun. The question is, Can the public be trained to be vigilant? Can it be made to see that the great antidote to crime is reasonable caution-the exercise of a little energy? Does exploitation pay? We are arresting pickpockets on the crosstown cars and elsewhere all the time, and giving the widest publicity. Ever since I was a little boy I've read about the green goods game, and for the last twenty years the exploits of wire-tappers have been chronicled week by week and month by month. The curious thing about this phase of it is that the men who are victimized are them selves crooks in intent, if not in act, and should have more vigilance. One large house in Chicago had its window smashed and property stolen three times within a month, yet the manager wouldn't hire a special officer to stand outside on guard. Another jeweler in the same city was the victim of "pennyweighters" three times within three months. If men won't learn from their own experience, what will they learn from the experience of others? Only a few days after the Equitable fire I was in the office of a friend of mine downtown. He had only one room and employed no help. He was talking about the great fire, the fearful loss of property, and loudly censuring the fellow who'd thrown the fatal match. He held up a paper which he'd been reading and pointed to some vivid pictures taken at the fire. Then he locked his desk, lighted a cigar, tossed the charred match into the waste-paper basket, and, as we went out, locked the door. Before we got to the elevator my friend remembered that he had left something behind and returned to get it. As we opened the door we were greeted with a cloud of smoke. The basket was ablaze and flames had already caught the lower side of the wooden desk. quickly put the fire out. Will people never learn? We V GREAT BRITAIN'S LORD CHANCELLOR BY ROBERT DONALD ISCOUNT HALDANE, who is visiting Montreal to attend the Conference of the American Bar Association in September, is the highest officer of state in England. One of the busiest men in England and also one of the ablest, he has attained pre-eminence in five careers, as lawyer, politician, scholar, educationalist, and diplomatist. While he was occupied in one position, there was always at the back of the public mind the consciousness that his talents were being squandered; for he was so eminently fitted for other spheres of activity. Officially, the Lord Chancellor is one of the great bulwarks of the King and Constitution, and only on very rare occasions is he granted a special dispensation to leave the country. He is the keeper of the Great Seal, which is of even more importance than the King's Scepter. It has to be affixed to Acts of Parliament, of necessity in the Lord Chancellor's presence, and to other documents conveying the ultimate expression of the will of the sovereign. So great and important are the functions and powers of the Lord Chancellor that it is difficult to describe them in a few words. He exercises considerable patronage in appointing ministers of the State Church. He is the head of the legal profession, and in that capacity is responsible for the selection of the Judges of the High Court, for the appointment of Justices of the Peace-the unpaid magistrates who preside at petty sessions and in police courts to administer justice. He issues writs for election of members to serve in the House of Commons, and he presides over the House of Lords, wearing, on this occasion, a wig and official robes, and sitting on what is called the Woolsack, a wide crimson ottoman stuffed with wool, a memento of the time when wool was the staple trade of England. He wears knee-breeches, black silk hose, and low shoes with silver buckles. Behind him, on the Woolsack, is placed the Sachet of the Great Seal, symbol of his power and authority. This Woolsack, which stands at some distance from the end of the Chamber, in front of the King's Throne, looks more comfortable than it really is; for it has no back and there is no desk in front of it. While the Lord Chancellor occupies the Chair, or rather the Woolsack, in the House of Lords, he has no real authority over the procedure or deliberations. There is no similarity between his position and that of the Speaker of the House of Commons. several peers rise simultaneously, he cannot select one to speak. He has no more right to call attention to irrelevancies in discussion than has any other member. The Lords, being very quiet and harmless legislators, observe due decorum in debate. The House meets at odd hours, never has long sittings, discusses matters in an easy and informal way, and has an elastic code of procedure which it does not seem to be any particular person's business to enforce. The interest in the functions of the Second Chamber has not been great for many years, and has, for the time being, practically disappeared. desks and are dressed as ordinary mortals, without the encumbrance of wig or gown. The lawyers pleading in the Court wear their wigs and robes, and discuss cases at great length in a quiet, conversational way. Lord Haldane is the chief member of a still higher Court, which interprets the Constitutions of the British Empire beyond the seas and settles disputes between Dominions, States, and Provinces. This is the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, a body which is an enigma to many who are unfamiliar with the Constitutional law of Great Britain. Not much of romance is apparent from the title of the Committee, and yet the procedure has not its equal anywhere else in the world. In Downing Street, off Whitehall, where are the official residences of the Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the chief party Whip of the Government, there is a gloomy-looking building, over the portals of which the words 66 When Privy Council are inscribed in white letters. Here the Council sits when the King is in London; but its meetings are held wherever the King happens to be, on land or sea, and although it consists of considerably more than two hundred members, chosen from the Empire's most distinguished men, three members are sufficient to form a quorum, so that the traveling difficulty is not so formidable, after all. At one time, the Council, which dates back substantially to the Norman period, possessed immense powers and interfered continually with affairs of justice. It was, in fact, useful to the Crown as a vehicle for straining Royal prerogative to the utmost. Nowadays it practically confines its activities to the granting of Charters and making of Orders. But it is the Judicial Committee that is the sanctum sanctorum; it is the mainspring of empire, the "power behind the throne." Here, in this dingy house, it holds the greatest Court in the world, having jurisdiction over four hundred million souls. Lord Chancellor Haldane presides, with several eminent judges to assist him. Seated unwigged and without their robęs of office, at small desks in a bare and cheerless apartment from which the emblematic significance and dignity which surround the Judges in the Royal Courts of Justice are entirely absent, they hold the legal balance even between all the states and races within the far-flung world empire. As the head of the legal profession, the Lord Chancellor presides over the House of Lords when it sits as the Supreme Court of Appeal from the Courts of Justice of the Kingdom. The judicial members of the House, who, for practical purposes, form this highest Court of Appeal, possess a profound knowledge of the law and of all legal decisions. Their judgments are of momentous importance, as they are final; in this sense the Court can never be wrong, as its judgments cannot be reversed. This highest legal tribunal meets in a solemn, serene, and tranquil atmosphere. In the center of the House of Lords, with its twelve beautiful, lofty stained-glass windows through which the light glints on statues, situated in niches around the Chamber, of the barons who compelled King John to sign Magna Charta, the Law Lords sit at small Probably a Canadian barrister will be arguing an appeal case from Bengal or Toronto, and a sprinkling of Chinese, Hindus, Boers, or Egyptians who are interested in the result will form the spectators. Occasionally a stray member of the general public will enter from the street out of curiosity, for the Court is public; but its deliberations are more important than they are exciting, and do not appeal to the average man. The verdicts of consular courts, prize courts, ecclesiastical courts, and admiralty courts may be set aside by the Committee, and its powers are wellnigh unlimited. Lord Haldane discharges his duties on the Committee much in the same way as one of paid to the Prime Minister, through whom he receives his appointment. He is allowed a pension of $25,000 a year when his party goes out of office; but in consideration of this pension he continues to act as Law Lord. Richard Burdon Haldane-syllabically Hall-dane was born fifty-seven years ago in Edinburgh, and is a member of an old Scottish family. He received his early training at Edinburgh Academy and Edinburgh University, and, call it prophetic instinct or what you will, his young fellow-students at once found for him a nickname, that of "the Lord The official seat of the Lord Chancellor in the House of Lords; it stands in front of the King's throne his brilliant predecessors, concerning whom he recently uttered the following eulogy: He never failed to endeavor to interpret the law according to the spirit of the jurisprudence of the colony from which the appeal came. If it was a Cape appeal, he was a Roman-Dutch lawyer; if it was an Indian case of adoption, he entered into the religious reasons for the rule to be applied; if it was a Quebec case of arbitration or a case of substitution under the old French code, or a Jersey appeal about the custom of Normandy, it was the same. Even now I have mentioned only some of the duties which fall to Lord Haldane, or which he willingly assumes. He is a leading member of the Cabinet, and is interested in many public and political questions outside his official duties. He receives a salary of $50,000 a year, which is double the amount Chancellor," an office for which he was destined nearly forty years later. While most of his contemporaries were struggling with the Greek Lexicon, he was presiding over the Philomathic and Philosophic Societies, and the seeds of his learning were already blossoming into sturdy saplings. From Edinburgh he went to Göttingen, where he absorbed with his Teutonic training an admiration for German institutions and ideals that has well served, not him only, but the British people at large. On leaving university life, flushed with the honors which the four Scottish Universities for Philosophy heaped upon him when he was only twenty years of age, he entered the law in England and quickly gained a lucrative practice. As a lawyer he exuded an atmos |