LAUGHING IT OFF.

There being exceptions to every rule, perhaps it is only to be expected that Law sometimes loses its dignity. If such instances were few and far between, they might be discounted, but many cases have recently come up where the tradition of "majesty" as a necessary attribute to law seems to have been disregarded. The Tennessee anti-evolution law, brought to light a year and a half ago, might be dismissed as a rara avis if it were not for the fact that the same law was recently brought up in a bill in Minnesota to introduce it there. The State of Nebraska considered the advisability of jailing "sheiks" and "vamps". Now a proposal to prohibit pie is before the legislature of Kansas.

The Kansas suggestion, strange as it may seem, is reasonable because it alone is intended to be laughable. The senator who proposes it intends it to bring about the end of "asinine laws", aiming specifically at the repeal of the anti-cigarette law now in force in the state in the not unreasonable hope of showing the foolishness of all such legislation. and we can commend the senator's astuteness in fighting comedy with ridicule. His method might be profitably used in preserving the rationality of law in Nebraska and Minnesota and elsewhere. But it is unfortunate that satire is needed to preserve sanity in legislation. At times when crime is unusually persistent, it will not help matters to make even exceptional laws ridiculous. The fault however, does not lie with Mr. Finley of Kansas but with those who have given the cause for so justified an attack. We hope his lesson will be taken to heart by law-makers who fail to realize that theirs is a serious job. Law enforcement is difficult enough as it is.