ANIMAL DEPRAVITY. 



ISO 



portunity of attacking horses, cows, sheep, and 

 human beings. There is a well-authenticated in- 

 stance of a terrier who, in picking a quarrel, 

 contrived, as skillfully as if trained in the Kanz- 

 lei of Prince Bismarck, to place himself techni- 

 cally in the right. He would time his movements 

 so that some passenger should stumble over him, 

 and would then fasten on the calf of his leg. 

 With a most statesmanlike aptitude, he selected 

 the aged, the infirm, and the ill-dressed, as the 

 objects of his cunningly-planned attacks. Lord 

 Lytton tells us that the dog is a gentlemanly ani- 

 mal ! 



Closely connected with quarrelsomeness is the 

 most fiendish of all man's failings — overlooked, 

 as it is, by world-betterers and vice-suppressers 

 — his disposition to give pain, bodily or mental, 

 for mere amusement. There are few human be- 

 ings, of the male sex at least, who do not delight 

 in tormenting other creatures, whether of their 

 own or of some different species. 1 Yet even this 

 kind of malignity is not unshared by man's poor 

 relations. Fall among wolves, and they will kill 

 you for the straightforward purpose of eating you. 

 Fall among blue-nosed baboons, and they will tor- 

 ment you to death "just for the fun of the thing." 

 Could a red Indian, or even a normal English 

 schoolboy, greatly improve upon this ? 



With the exception of a few genuine — not 

 professional — philanthropists, man is remarkable 

 for persecuting such of his own species as are 

 unfortunate. This diabolical propensity shows 

 itself in a variety of forms. " Hit him again, he 

 has no friends," is scarcely a parody on the 

 •avowed opinions of the less hypocritical of the 

 species. Those who lay claim to higher culture 

 express their sorrow far the calamities of a neigh- 

 bor by eschewing his society, or perhaps even by 

 asking him whether he does not recognize in his 

 sufferings a well-merited divine chastisement ? 



Odious as is this trait of human character, 

 man has no monopoly thereof. The wounded 

 wolf is at once devoured by his comrades. 



Cattle, both wild and tame, have been observed 

 to gore and trample to death a sick or lame mem- 

 ber of the herd. A rook, accidentally entangled 

 in the twigs of a tree, is pecked and buffeted by 

 its fellow-citizens. This, of course, has been pro- 

 nounced " instinctive." Animals, we are gravely 

 told, put an end to sufferings which they are 

 powerless to alleviate. They do not wish that 

 the herd should be incumbered with a sickly or 



1 When an Englishman talks about amusement, it 

 may be inferred as a general rule that he means kill- 

 ing something. 



wounded member. Taking these explanations 

 for what they are worth, we still ask whether 

 man's ill-treatment of his unfortunate fellows is 

 not the ultimate transformation of the very same 

 instinct. 



But, further, the alleged instinct is not com- 

 mon to all gregarious animals. Monkeys and 

 baboons cherish and defend the young, the help- 

 less, and the wounded, of their own species. 

 Ants will take great pains to rescue a member of 

 their community who is in distress. 



Looking in a different direction, we must ac- 

 knowledge that among viviparous animals and 

 birds, the females are, as a general rule, no less 

 careful of their young than are human mothers. 

 In thus acting they are undoubtedly obeying one 

 of the " laws " of their nature. But they can 

 also transgress such law, just as we occasionally 

 find a woman who will neglect, ill-treat, or even kill 

 her child. So is it with female brutes. Some- 

 times, though rarely, they will abandon or de- 

 stroy their young. This is a fact well known to 

 the breeders of tame animals. The seller of a 

 mare, a cow, or a sow, is often asked by an intend- 

 ing purchaser, " Is she a good mother ? " It 

 must be remarked that neglect of family is by no 

 means the invariable result of want of food, or 

 of danger and annoyance. Birds will, as is well 

 known, sometimes forsake their nests from fear. 

 But a hen has been known to leave her chickens to 

 the mercy of accidents without any conceivable 

 motive save caprice, or the want of ordinary nat- 

 ural affection. Cats, though ordinarily very affec- 

 tionate mothers, and sows, sometimes devour 

 their young. Here, therefore, we find, again, that 

 the lower animals are not bound down by abso- 

 lute necessity to one unvarying line of conduct. 

 Like man, they have the power to deviate from 

 what is for them natural, normal, or right. Oc- 

 casionally they make use of such power. What 

 may be the causes of, or the motives for, such 

 transgression, is not here the question. Enough 

 for us that it exists. 



We now come to a part of the subject which, 

 though essential to our argument, we cannot en- 

 ter into at any length. Do brutes invariably obey 

 the " law of their being " as regards the mutual 

 relations of the sexes ? Far from it. The nearer 

 brutes approach to man, the more they are in- 

 clined to sin against what, in modern cantology, 

 is exclusively styled " morality." "With animals 

 which pair conjugal fidelity is, indeed, more gen- 

 eral than with mankind. A petty negro chief 

 laughed at the notion of keeping to one wife, 

 " like the monkeys." Still it is far from being 



