Most people seem to possess a revolver nowadays. They may not carry it about, but they keep it at home and when there is an inquest—usually on the owner or on one of his children—the wife in ther evidence blandly remarks: "Oh, yes, I knew he had a pistol. I have seen it in a drawer.'"' The jury never says anything, but, like the parrot, it must think a good deal. If People were content with this mea sure of innocuousness I do not think that we should have much to say, but they are not, Years ago we used to scoff at the ready addiction of the Italian to the use of the knife, but certainly he can now retort that we on our part are much too fond of lethal weapons of the firearm type. We must plead guilty. Another tragedy illustrative of the point occurred this week. The cashier of a bank in King Street, St. James, shot dead a fellow bank employee because the latter was the admitted favourite with a girl to whom both were attached. It is the war habit. Before. then most people would have shrunk at the idea of carrying pistols; now it is second habit to do so. Half the suicides attain death by this means and it is noticeable that very often the weapon is only a toy pistol which seems to indicate that it is not the
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.