Crime.—It is a startling fact, that the terrible crime of murder is greatly on the increase. Suicide, too, is becoming a species of mania, and wife-beating on an atrociously brutal scale appears to be running riot. The annals of the criminal and police courts are rife with accounts of barbarous wife or husband slaying, and with the painful records of self-destruction. The daily province of police magistrates seems to be to adjudicate on incessant charges of infamous brutality preferred by wives against their ruffianly husbands, fellows who, without any real provocation, employ clenched fist and nailed boots to injure, sometimes fatally, those whom before God they have sacredly sworn to love and to cherish. Coroners were never more busy with inquests on butchered individuals or self-murderers than now. Of late the judges have donned the fatal black cap with almost the terrible frequency they did in the dark and guilty "blood money" days, and the grim hand that strangles according to law has no lack of employment. Turn which way we will, the thrilling cry of murder rings in our ears.—London Times.