S1r John Scott, lately judicial adviser to the Khedive, in an address which he delivered in London the other day, gave an interesting ac count of the revolution which has been effected, under British occupancy, in the administration of Egyptian law courts. When, in 1890, he undertook the job of reforming existent abuses, matters were in a terrible condition. The judges were ignorant, servile and venal, mere political parasites, and law and justice were equally disre garded. Of the appellate, judges at Cairo, one had been a station-master, another the door keeper of a prime minister. With such judges, and a hopelessly corrupt and blackmailing police, there was small hope for any prisoner who had neither money nor influence. When, however, Sir John retired in 1896, a wonderful change had been wrought by his efforts. The notoriously in competent judges have been deposed, and no man can now get on the bench without a legal diploma. The law, both civil and criminal, is enforced with vigor and impartiality, and even the pashas are made to feel the authority of the courts which they formerly regarded merely as convenient agencies for the enforcement of their own ne farious schemes. A cousin of the Khedive, who shot at another prince, now wears a convict uni form, and the son of the richest man in all Egypt is also in penal servitude for robbery. Another Egyptian magnate has just been sent to jail for forgery, to his intense astonishment and disgust.
There recently died in London a man who was known as Fred II, the king of pickpockets. He used to operate mainly on race-tracks, and was well known on the turf, in France as well as in England. He left behind him a few stories of his marvellous dexterity as a thief; that was all. One day he made a bet that he would pick the pocket of the Prince of Wales. The feat seemed absolutely impossible, because most of the prince's friends knew the man well enough to prevent his coming near the royal person. But the mat ter proved simple to the king of pickpockets. He won his bet and returned the pocketbook intact. This pickpocket took particular delight in filehing the watches and pocketbooks of police officers and magistrates. At that time he was always dressed in the latest fashion and was prosperous. But one day he made a failure in
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his attempt to relieve Baron Hirsch, the great philanthropist, of his purse, and the ridicule that followed him haunted him to his grave. Many curiosity-seekers attended his funeral, but after ward found that the professional pickpockets of London had relieved them of all their valuables, which was the thieves' tribute to their dead king. This wholesale theft was the rogue's last legacy to the living.
Somet1mes, without doubt, American and British judges, who are held to a close accountability to the letter of a law which may have in it no jus tice for a particular case, may well sigh for the latitude of an Oriental cadi. Sometimes, more over, they may rightfully bend the administration of the law in the direction of absolute justice. An English paper, for instance, records a peculiar decision in the suit of a usurer against a poor woman. The man had lent the woman money in such a way that it was to be paid in in stalments, and with monthly usurious interest. The woman was unable to pay the amount due. The judge satisfied himself that the woman was honest and honorable, and that what she had already paid in instalments would cover the orig inal loan and a reasonable interest. "Will you accept five pounds in discharge?" asked the judge of the plaintiff. " You will then have had ten per cent, on the loan." The plaintiff would accept nothing less than the full amount to which the law entitled him. "Then," said the judge, " although I cannot invalidate the agreement, I can make an order which, I think, will fit the case. I give judgment for the full amount, to be paid at the rate of six pence a month." This was the " instalment system " with a ven geance, for at this rate of payment the usurer would be seventy -five years in getting his money.
CURRENT EVENTS. Malay is almost a grammarless tongue. It has no proper article, and its substantives may serve equally well as verbs, being singular or plural and entirely genderless. However, adjectives and a process of reduplication often indicate number, and gender words are added to nouns to make sex allusions plain. Whatever there is of declension is
