A POINTLESS ILLUSTRATION.
QUAKERS are hard put to it sometimes to carry out their impracti- cable plan of peace at all price. We all remember the Quaker who never struck, but allowed rash men to run against his fists. Mr. George Head Head, the Sheriff of Westmoreland, had to assist at the judicial pageant on the opening of Carlisle Assizes, and he was to provide "javelin-men." Fancy a Quaker called upon to array an army of spearmen ! He fell upon the novel expedient of dis- arming the javelins—of substituting balls for the pointed heads. This looks like a practical application of peace principles ; but it is only skin deep. If the javelin-men are of any use, and if their weapons came into play, the knobby spears might be handled in a mode quite as warlike, though perhaps less dangerously than pointed weapons. But a punch in the nbs with a ball might have told with great force. If the Quaker felt that meddling with weapons was against his conscience, he should have abolished the javelins altogether—or have declined to serve as Sheriff altogether. How would he manage if there were a hanging at Carlisle ?
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