admit that the hundred dollars that this railroad employee took was not a debitum verum, nor a debitum certum, and that this employee had no strict right, founded in justice, and beyond all reasonable doubt, to the said money. The pay that he was receiving from the railroad company was evidently not infra minimum, and if it were, he was not obliged by extreme necessity to work for it, since he could have found other work to do, and since he knew beforehand the nature of the work that was required of him and the wages he was to receive for it. He agreed to do the work for the wage of his own free will and not being constrained, and with full knowledge both of the labor demanded of him and the recompense promised. That was a contractus onerosus, entered into without fraud or deception or force, and the employee had no right therefore to alter its terms, without the consent of the other party to the contract. The hundred dollars must be restored to the railroad company. It is evidently their property and res clamat domino. This we say in view of the first part of the case. But what of the second part? Before coming to the second part of the case we will call attention to a condition, in connection with this first part of this case, existing in almost every large city of the United States, viz.: the dishonesty of street railway employees. There are 3050 conductors employed on the New York City railway lines. In the year 1904, 3491 were discharged, of whom 3436 were in the service less than a year. In 1905, 3019 conductors were discharged, of whom 2864 had been less than one year in the service. In 1906, 4976 conductors were discharged, of whom 4776 had been less than a year in the service. In the first six months of 1907, 3265 have been discharged, of whom 3144 were in the service less than one year.

The tremendous extent to which these discharges have been for dishonesty or stealing is indicated by the following figures:

In the present year, therefore, if the average for the first six months is carried out, the entire force of conductors on the surface lines will be discharged virtually twice over for dishonesty alone. This means a loss to the surface railway company of New York City, inclusive of fares not collected, of more than ten per cent. of its gross income, or upward of two million dollars a year. Various statements of what this system of self-compensation was worth to individual men have been made up, but only as estimates. One man high up in the councils of the surface railway company said the other day that a former valet who was put in on the road as a motorman found that his share of the daily profit was from $2.00 to $3.00 under normal conditions. Several months ago there was a case in the divorce courts in New York City in which the wife of a city railway conductor was suing for alimony, and in her bill charged that although her husband's salary from the railway company was only $18.00 a week, he ought to pay alimony on a $50.00 a week basis, as he "knocked down" $35.00 a week on the side. There was a disposition to believe at first that this was an exaggeration, but subsequent investigations bore out the facts. The ordinary reason advanced to justify this dishonesty is that the

men are not being paid sufficient wages and therefore are obliged to recover secretly. On the other hand, it has been asserted in the investigation of traffic conditions by the Public Service Commission that the deficit of the New York City railway system in the fiscal year ending June 30, 1907, was over $3,000,000. In other words, although the gross receipts for the year 1906 were $21,937,943, there was a deficit of $2,212,997, two millions of which was caused by dishonest employees. So easy is it for men to persuade themselves that they have a right to recover by secret compensation! (Cf. New York Times, November 17, 1907.) How earnest, therefore, ought not the confessor to be, especially before the fact, in disabusing men of this false conscience.

In regard to the second part of the railway employee's case, namely, would it be permitted to this man to keep this hundred dollars, or any portion of it, amounting to $10.00 per month, for the time that the railway company acknowledged that his pay ought to be increased $10.00 per month, but nevertheless failed to increase it?

If the railroad company has really acknowledged that the work of this employee is worth $10.00 per month more than he is receiving in wages for it, and if the true reason why the company does not increase his pay at present, is because they feel that he is obliged to work for them anyway, then they are taking advantage of his need to defraud him of what they freely confess in justice belongs to him and which they unjustly keep back from him, and therefore he might be permitted to deduct from the sum he owes the railroad company the sum of $10.00 for every month that the company fails to increase his pay since the time that they acknowledged that his wages ought to be increased to that extent. If the company's delay covers more than ten months, we would not

permit the man to resume recovering secretly, but we would advise him to change his employer if he thought he could not work for the wages he contracted for. If, however, the reason why the railroad company did not at this time wish to increase his pay, was because they could not very well afford to do so economically, owing to the stringency of the money market for the last four or five months, then we do not think that this employee would be allowed to reimburse himself from the money he owes the company. In this case the company would not be taking undue advantage of this employee's need, but would be simply refusing to pay more wages for a certain kind of work than they could afford to pay and which they could get other men to do just as well for the present wage, which is, we suppose, not infra minimum justum.

A priest is called to a sick person, living a considerable distance from the church. The road is very heavy and the night very cold and stormy. When he finally arrives at the sick man's house he finds the sick man unconscious. He gives him conditional absolution, and then proceeds to anoint him, as he cannot receive Viaticum. But upon opening the oil stocks he discovers that instead of the oleum infirmorum, he has brought with him the other two oils! What shall he do? It will require several hours to send to the church for the oil of the sick. The man may be dead before that. The priest quickly dispatches a messenger for the oleum infirmorum, and in the mean time gives the sick man Extreme Unction with the oil of catechumens. When the messenger returned with the oil of the sick, the priest repeated the Sacrament sub conditione, and the man expired without regaining consciousness. Was the Sacrament valid with the oleum catechumenorum, or was the second administration sub conditione necessary or even lawful?

Answer.-The Council of Trent defines the matter of the Sacrament of Extreme Unction to be: "Oleum ab episcopo benedictum." The exact words of the council are: "Ex apostolica autem traditione, per manus accepta, intellexit Ecclesia materiam esse oleum ab episcopo benedictum" (Sess. 14).

The oil, blessed by the bishop, is understood to be oil of olives; for the word used simply and without qualification has this meaning and this has been the uniform teaching and practise of the Church throughout the centuries. "Quia oleum principaliter nominatur olivae liquor," says St. Thomas, "cum alii liquores solum ex similitudine ad ipsum olei nomen accipiant, ideo oleum olivae etiam debet esse, quod assumitur in materia hujus sacramenti" (Suppl.