120 THE MENDEL JOURNAL 



had terrorised the North of France by a great number 

 of motiveless and ruthless murders. The leader of 

 this band had committed two hundred and fifty such 

 murders, and he was tranquilly playing cards and 

 contemplating the happy hours he would spend under 

 the cocoa-palms, when he and his companions, three 

 in number, learnt the fact that even the stupidest 

 sentiment must some time come to an end. For at 

 last, craven fear had attained what common-sense 

 could not, and these murderers were condemned to 

 death. An enormous crowd assembled to witness the 

 execution. Throughout the proceedings the crowd did 

 not cease to raise shouts of " Death, death ! " The 

 crowd was " delighted," " exultant," and " excited," 

 France has, through the agency of her sentiment, 

 bred her criminals and unfit, just as we are doing, 

 and now she must meet the situation by a ruthless 

 vengeance and wholesale destruction, just as we shall 

 have to, or herself sink into " death vomited in 

 great floods. ' ' Laisser faire, which leaves all unfitness 

 to reap its own destruction as fast as it arises, achieves 

 the end more humanely and much quicker. 



I have appended these four cases in order that we 

 may be reminded what will be the conduct of the 

 human multitude when the day of adversity and stress 

 arrives. Unless a nation is composed of reliant and 

 self-supporting individuals this day of adversity is 

 inevitable. For so soon as our morbid sentiment has 

 reared a shipwrecked horde of helpless incapables 

 of such dimension that the fit cannot or will not any 

 longer bear the burden of its support, then the day of 



