Holmes declared. In hte eocond pre£
ace, “was to toot the doctrtne of
original sin. and human responsibility
for the disordered volition coming
under that, technical denomination
“ Was Elsie Vernier, poisoned by the
venom of a cretatus (rattlesnake) be
fore ehe wae bqrn. morally respond-
Me for the ’volltioaaT. aberrations,
which translated into aonr -become
what te known as eln, xnd. it May be,
what le punished as crime?
"If, on presentation of the evidence
she becomes by the verdict of the
human conscience a proper object of
divine pitv. and not of dlvine wrath,
as a subject of. moral poteenlng.
wherein lie* the difference jnwwa
her position at the bar of Judgment,
human or divine, and that of the un
fortunate victim who received a moral
poison from a remote ancestor before
he drew hte first breath?" • * „
It will bo seen that Oliver Wendell
Holmes long antedated our so-called
"modern” attitude in regard to crlme
and criminate. He was one of our
first “probtem" or psychological nov
elists.
At- the same time hla Irresistible
sense of humor allowed him to so* the
fun of Now England Use a* he went
along in hte etory. with the result that
chapter 7. "The Event of the fieXson.”
contains an account of the first Ice
cream party In th* village.
It was. indeed, the 'grarul blow
out,” tho big event, Mr. and Mr*. Col.
Bprowls had a daughter to marry
off, and agreed that the beet way to
achieve that result would be to give
a "party,” where the girl might be
sson of all the eligible young men.
