Of angered Theseus' club of knotted oak,
The Centaurs feared and fled toward the sea,
Pursued by the triumphant Lapithæ,
Law's Lapithæ lay prone in our late fray.
Do we not need a Theseus then to-day?
NOT A "DEUS EX MACHINÂ."
Some philosophers are very anxious to demonstrate that man is a mere Automaton. A man, however, can at any rate be regulated, and, at need, "run in," which it seems that the Automatic Cigarette and Sweetmeat Machines now so much in vogue cannot. Naughty little boys are convicted of beguiling them of Butter Scotch by means of discs of card and base metal, instead of coins of the realm. On the other hand the Automata are charged with absorbing the coppers of honest would-be purchasers without rendering up the proper portion of Toffee or Tobacco. Machines which are at once dishonest themselves and the cause of dishonesty in others can hardly be looked upon as an improvement upon living vendors, who if they have little conscience to appeal to, have at least persons to be punished.