Marshall wrote nineteen articles or “squibs," THE PHIabout MacDonald, calling him scamp, fakir, LISTINE fraud, prurient pollywog, sensualist and degenerate. Always on the waiting hook he had a stickful of choice stuff about MacDonald. ¶ Marshall admitted that he had never met MacDonald, knew nothing of his business, family, antecedents, or history, and when asked in court to point MacDonald out, he located an innocent, visiting attorney who surely looked like a degenerate, whether he was one or not. The accused attorney's classic mug ran the chromatic scale, the jury smiled, the Judge buried his beak in a book, visitors roared, and the bum bailiff struck his staff on the floor and called loudly for order.

One particular editorial entitled, "The Pursuits of a Degenerate," was selected, and over this the legal battle was fought. Marshall testified that he wrote the article, and he was asked to explain what he meant by the word degenerate. He defined it, but not quite clearly enough for Lawyer Severance. So Severance defined the word and asked Marshall if he agreed with him. The editor admitted that Severance was right. But Severance was not content with this. He took up, one at a time, the choicest rogues, villains, murderers and

THE PHI- unnameable vagroms that have lived in human LISTINE form, recited their lecherous deeds and doings, and ended each time by asking Marshall if they

were degenerates.

And Marshall answered, "Aye.”

Guiteau, Cszolgosz, Oscar Wilde, Nero, Cæsar Borgia, the person who fired the Alexandrian Library, and the man who struck Billy Patterson-all were degenerates. One whole day was taken up on this word degenerate, and while Marshall admitted that a degenerate was the very worst that ever happened, he also admitted that so far as his own knowledge was concerned, MacDonald might be an angel with wings. Three witnesses were called by the "Sun" to prove their case. Commissioner-of-Education Harris testified that MacDonald was scientific," but beyond this he would not venture. MacDonald had worked for him twelve years, and he might have called him a "nincompoop"-probably he had, he could n't say. Another declared him "impossible"; while a third said MacDonald was a "skeezicks" and a chump," also a "curmudgeon," and should be kicked to helangone on general principles.

66

"un

Judge Dickey cautioned the "Sun" attorney not to refer again to him as a dickey-bird; and in charging the jury said that he did not know

the meaning of "impossible," "skeezicks," THE PHI"nincompoop" and "chump" as applied to a LISTINE man, or as used in jurisprudence. MacDonald

might be all these things-he really could not say-and so the jury should make no note of these things, and as for being "unscientific," we were all so, more or less, and to be in error was human. Moreover, no editor had the legal right to punish men he did not like, "on general principles." Newspapers exist to give the news, and should not resolve themselves into a public whipping-post.

Verdict for Plaintiff.

In the trial of MacDonald vs. the Sun Publishing Company, the "Sun" had a great opportunity for a write-up. But the scoop is mine, exclusively.

I recommend a religion that will unite men, not divide them.

HE best way to learn to write, is to
write.

Herbert Spencer never studied
grammar until he had learned to
write. He took his grammar at

sixty, which is a good age to begin this inter

ΙΟΥ

THE PHI- esting study, as by that time you have largely LISTINE lost your capacity to sin.

Men who swim exceedingly well are not those who have taken courses in the theory of swimming at natatoriums, from professors of the amphibian art—they were just boys who jumped in. Correspondence schools for the taming of bronchos are as naught; and treatises on the gentle art of wooing are of no avail-follow nature's lead.

Grammar is the appendenda vermiformis of pedagogics: it is as useless as the letter q in the alphabet, or as the proverbial two tails to a cat, which no cat ever had, and the finest cat in the world, the Manx cat, has no tail at all. ¢ "The literary style of most university men is commonplace, when not positively bad,” wrote Herbert Spencer in his old age.

"Educated Englishmen all write alike," said Taine. That is to say, they have no literary style, for style is character, individuality—the style is the man, and grammar tends to obliterate individuality. No study is so irksome to everybody, excepting the sciolists who teach it, as grammar. It remains forever a bad taste in the mouth of the man of ideas, and has weaned bright minds innumerable from a desire to express themselves thru the written word.

Grammar is the etiquette of words, and the man who does not know how to properly salute his grandmother on the street until he has consulted a book, is always so troubled about the tenses that his fancies break thru language and escape.

Orators who keep their thoughts upon the proper way to gesticulate in curves, impress nobody. If poor grammar were a sin against decency, or an attempt to poison the minds of the people, it might be wise enough to hire men to protect the well of English from defilement. But a stationary language is a dead one -moving water only is pure-and the well that is not fed by springs is a breeding-place for disease.

Let men express themselves in their own way, and if they express themselves poorly, look you, their punishment will be that no one will read them. Oblivion, with her smother-blanket, waits for the writer who has nothing to say and says it faultlessly.

In the making of a hare soup, I am told, the first requisite is to catch your hare. The literary scullion who has anything to offer a hungry world, will doubtless find a way to fricassee it.

Bring me cheerful messages, or none!

THE PHI.
LISTINE