 it admits of classification, and a court is assigned
to each of the main heads under which it can be supposed to fall. Not very long
after I had reached the capital I strolled into the Personal Bereavement Court,
and was much both interested and pained by listening to the trial of a man who
was accused of having just lost a wife to whom he had been tenderly attached,
and who had left him with three little children, of whom the eldest was only
three years old.
    The defence which the prisoner's counsel endeavoured to establish was, that
the prisoner had never really loved his wife; but it broke down completely, for
the public prosecutor called witness after witness who deposed to the fact that
the couple had been devoted to one another, and the prisoner repeatedly wept as
incidents were put in evidence that reminded him of the irreparable nature of
the loss he had sustained. The jury returned a verdict of guilty after very
little deliberation, but recommended the prisoner to mercy on the ground that he
had but recently insured his wife's life for a considerable sum, and might be
deemed lucky inasmuch as he had received the money without demur from the
insurance company, though he had only paid two premiums.
    I have just said that the jury found the prisoner guilty. When the judge
passed sentence, I was struck with the way in which the prisoner's counsel was
rebuked for having referred to a work in which the guilt of such misfortunes as
the prisoner's was extenuated to a degree that roused the indignation of the
court.
    »We shall have,« said the judge, »these crude and subversionary books from
time to time until it is recognized as an axiom of morality that luck is the
only fit object of human veneration. How far a man has any right to be more
lucky and hence more venerable than his neighbours, is a point that always has
been, and always will be, settled proximately by a kind of higgling and haggling
of the market, and ultimately by brute force; but however this may be, it stands
to reason that no man should be allowed to be unlucky to more than a very
moderate extent.«
    Then, turning to the prisoner, the judge continued: »You have suffered a
great loss. Nature attaches a severe penalty to such offences, and human law
must emphasize the decrees of nature. But for the recommendation of the jury I
should have given you six months' hard labour. I will, however, commute your
sentence to one of three months, with the option of a fine of twenty-five per
cent
