sive practice in the Federal Courts; and it is and is a ripe scholar in the classics. He

a curious coincidence that in the first case will bring to the high poskion to which he heard before the late Chief Justice Waite has been appointed a rare culture and such when he went upon the bench (Tappan v. attainments as few lawyers possess. Socially Merchants National Bank) Mr. Fuller, who he is a gentleman of courtly dignity and succeeds him, was of counsel. That was in presence, with a kindly, amiable manner 1874; and since that time, and for some indicative of a warm heart and generous years before, scarcely a term has passed in impulses. which he has not had a case upon the The appointment of Mr. Fuller has been most favorably received by the legal profes docket. In 186 1 he was a member of the conven sion throughout the country. Even his tion called to revise the constitution of the strongest political opponents were among State of Illinois, in which he took an active the first to recognize his eminent fitness for part and by his legal abilities rendered the position. Called in the vigor of his marked services. In 1862 he was elected manhood from the active practice of the bar, to the Illinois legislature, in which body he a lawyer of wide experience and command served one term. ing position in his profession, and a citizen Mr. Fuller is a man of scholarly habits, I of the highest personal character, he will and some of his more important arguments I undoubtedly prove a worthy successor of are mines of philosophical research. He is Jay and Marshall and Taney and Chase and familiar with several continental languages, 1 Waite.

THE WHITE CHAPEL TRAGEDIES. UP to the present time the perpetrator or perpetrators of that series of murders known as the Whitechapel tragedies are still at large; and so far as public information goes, no important clew to his or their where abouts has been found. The London popu lace has displayed its habitual characteristics in connection with these crimes. There has been the usual unreasoning panic, — excusa ble, perhaps, among the wretched womc /ho belong to the class from which the several victims have seemingly been chosen; barely excusable, too, on the part of the people who reside in the districts where such daring as sassinations have occurred; but surely in no degree to be justified in the case of the edu cated and reasoning citizen at large, or in the case of any section of the metropolitan press. On the subject of the murders the London public has produced a greater quantity of egregiously foolish utterances, in the differ

ent shapes of rumor, comment, and so-called suggestion, than could have been collected from a similar number of people in any part of the world. It has also, as a matter of course, blamed the police; while at the same time it has, doubtless with the best intention, done probably as much as in it lay to in crease the difficulties in the way of detection. All this was to be looked for. It constitutes one of the most formidable difficulties with which the police are confronted in a case of the kind. And it is hardly to be wondered at, in the circumstances, that many of those engaged in the detection of crime should be willing to dispense with the slight assistance which is to be gained by partially taking the public into their confidence, since it is so disproportionate a compensation for what is thereby lost. The fact, however, that the murderer or murderers have still to be tracked out is an in