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With our hearts full of gratitude for this modern civilization of ours, we sometimes look back and shudder at the cruelty of ancient and medieval times. We wonder how human beings possessing the average allotment of sanity could ever have taken such fiendish delight in the torture of prisoners or the persecution of martyrs. But what assurance have we that the joy of witnessing pain is a trait of the past? A certain recent event, among other things, makes some of us wonder.

On Friday, the thirteenth of this month, an unfortunate couple were put to death by electrocution. This fact alone, one would think, ought to satisfy the individual who is interested in the dispensation of justice, for, after all, this is really the only significant feature of the case. But this simple fact is insufficient for the gratification of the crowd. In spite o the meagerness of their knowledge of the legal situation or the import of the affair, their avidity in absorbing the morbid details of the execution, as provided by the more popular newspapers, was unbounded. How eagerly they assimilated the itemized description of this gruesome procedure! How they revelled in the mental picture brought to their minds of the death house, the atmosphere and the victims, writhing inwardly at the apprehension of their impending fate!

One may say, of course (and with reason) that the interest taken in this subject is negligible when compared to that manifested by the Roman multitude in, the persecutions of the Christians. One may also maintain that the modern concern in this matte is purely philosophical: but there is little justification for this latter assumption. The modern attitude toward this subject, though of much smaller proportions than the ancient, is, nevertheless, of exactly the same nature. It is a vulgar pleasure taken in the knowledge of the mental agony experienced by "those about to die". But possibly the fault lies equally with the journalist, who places before his public such sordid material. Would not Pioneer's financial policy of Mussolini's relations with the papacy from a sufficiently worthy substitute for it.' But we are afraid, somehow, that this would fall to satisfy the popular demand. W. E. F. '30.