should these papaphobes speak disrespectfully of the Sisters of
Charity in my presence.

. . .

Justice Van Fleet of the supreme court of California recently
rendered an opinion which indicates the utter emptiness of our
boast that in this land all men are equal before the law. Because
of the confusion or ignorance of a new motorman, the young child
of a plumber, playing upon the track, was killed by an electric
car. The parents sued the company and were awarded damages in the
sum of six thousand dollars. Defendant took an appeal, which the
supreme court sustained, and the cause was remanded on the ground
that the damages awarded were excessive--that the boy would
probably have followed his father's occupation, and an embryo
workman is not, in Justice Van Fleet's opinion, worth so much
money! Measured by this standard, what would have been the
average "value" of American presidents when they were boys? Now
that Justice Van Fleet is measuring human life solely by the gold
standard, perhaps he can tell us what a juvenile Shakespeare or
Webster is "worth." I have held to the opinion heretofore that
blood could not be measured by boodle, that the children of the
common people were of as much importance in the eye of the law as
the progeny of the plutocrat--that the anguish of parents did not
depend on the length of the purse; but Justice Van Fleet seems to
agree with Kernan's weeping Canuck, that the more siller one has
the more deeply he feels the loss of a son. He seems to need a
powerful cardac for his heart and a hot mush poultice for his
head, being as fine a combination of knave and fool, as one can
easily find. Had the supreme court declared that the plaintiffs