'LAW-ABIDINGNESS' IN THE SOUTH-WEST 219 



crime.' And while acknowledging the purity 

 and justice of the Supreme Court of the 

 United States, we are obliged to allow that 

 to the extreme tardiness of legal action, to the 

 endless quibbling which too often ends in the 

 practical non-enforcement of the law's decree, 

 to what has been neatly styled ' the coddling 

 of murderers,' to the abuses connected with 

 the selection of a jury, does the nation in large 

 degree owe lynchings, lootings of banks and 

 offices in broad daylight, highway and train 

 robbery and wrecking, and other pastimes 

 which have acquired unfortunate notoriety as 

 pre-eminently * American/ They are pre- 

 eminently South-Western, perhaps, and as such 

 find place in these pages, but assuredly they 

 cannot be laid to the door of the favourite 

 National Cat the foreign immigrant. He 

 is responsible for much, but not for all. 



There are side-issues in the game of life 

 here as elsewhere, and among them the 

 widespread evil of defective home-training 

 plays a large part. The overwhelming mass 

 of the demi-semi-educated delights in foster- 

 ing in its offspring the spirit of an ill-con- 

 ceived liberty, License masquerading under 



