California Agriculturist and Live Stock Journal. 



OUR POOR RELATIONS. 



BY D. G. INOKAHAM. 



T this late day, in the nineteenth 

 Vi ceatury, we are just beginning to 

 ij^ feel some respect for the animal 

 !cf creation. Darwin has told us that 

 we sprang from animals, and with 

 Bome of us it was not much of a spring 

 after all. Huxley evolves the human 

 soul from a few drops of ammonia and 

 carbonic acid, which, breathed upon by 

 winds of oxygen, and shone upon by the 

 electric rays of the sun, became in time 

 a God-worshiping and man-loviug being. 

 The theologio school has told us that we 

 were made out of the ground, and St. 

 George Mivart has even conceded that 

 the miraculous creation was simply the 

 in-breathing of the soul of man after his 

 body had been evolved by ages of devel- 

 opment. Perhaps, after all, then, we 

 are the children of dust and water. Our 

 decent (or rather, ascent,) is traceable 

 from such particles of dust as the coin 

 we carry in our pockets, or the mud we 

 scrape from our feet. 



Look at the rocks that are one mo- 

 ment washed by salt waves and the next 

 ESposed to air and sunbeams, and yon 

 will see a little animal squatted on the 

 rock and holding fast as if for dear life. 

 You look him over and you tiud no eyes. 

 You might look in vain for ears, or any 

 of our senses. A careful examination 

 will discover that of the five senses that 

 we possess he has but one — the sense of 

 feeling, and that rather blunted. He's 

 a "poor relation." We are rich. Our 

 faculties and senses open to us the uni- 

 verse of knowledge and feeling. He is 

 poor. Satisfied if kindly Nature washes 

 into his mouth the food that nourishes 

 him and keeps him alive. We say, 

 "poor relation," sure enough. "His 

 poverty, however, is more evident than 

 his relationship," some one will say. 

 'Can it be possible that that miserable 

 little jelly-bag has any kin to me who 

 walks the earth a man ?" 



Yes, sir; it possesses faculties in com- 

 mon with you, and thej' are stronger 

 links of evidence in the chain of proof 

 than similarity of bony or muscular 

 structure would be. He possesses the 

 faculty of enjoyment. That, alone, would 

 show a common parent. God never 

 made anything to be miserable. He, 

 doubtless, made people and beings to be 

 restless and unhappy at times that they 

 might aspire to something better that was 

 in store for them. More than that, our 

 poor relation possesses the means of 

 protecting himself, of showing his fears 

 or his loves, of reproducing his kind, 

 and last of all, he lives. That stamps 

 him as the child of God. Of the eternal 

 life which runs through all we see or 

 know or feel he has a share. Though 

 but an atom in the universe, "he counts 

 one with God," Glued fast to the rock, 

 he hears the common promise, ' 'Be faith- 

 ful over a few things, and I will make 

 thee ruler over many things." 



Never mind if our relations are poor. 

 Let us not be ashamed of them. It is 

 better to be the regenerate son of a chat- 

 tering monkey than the degenerate son 

 of a noble man. Better the going up 

 than the going down. Perhaps we shall 

 find our poor relations nearer perfect in 

 their kind than we are in ours. It is 

 quite natural that we should be self-sat- 

 isfied. No doubt the animal and the 

 vegetable have a certain satisfaction in 

 themselves. The oak looks down in 

 more senses than one on the scrubby 

 rosebush ; and the rosebush looks down 

 on the violet. Just so does the Cauca- 

 sian on the Mongolian and the African, 

 forgetful that the sun shines for all, and 



that the rain and the dew are the gift of 

 Nature to all. So our poor relations are 

 only poor because we feel a certain proud 

 satisfaction in ourselves. Poverty and 

 riches are arbitrary terms. What is 

 precious to Rothschild would be trash to 

 a Feejee. It would be quite natural for 

 an animal to think liU< kind thk kind, 

 and wan the "poor relation." Theo- 

 dore Parker illnstrates this in his "Con- 

 vention of the Humble-bees," and Pope 

 in his "Es.say on Man," 



"See all," says man. "created for my use;" 

 "See man fur mine," replies '-he pampered goose. 



But man seems now the creature whose 

 turn it is to grow. Geologic ages have 

 seen grasses and insects run their race, 

 and give place to snakes and reptiles of 

 gigantic frame. Ages were required to 

 develop bone and muscle as well as the 

 fruits and grains that sustain them. And 

 now man comes in his turn to build up 

 the brain. Examine the skeleton of a 

 megatherium as it stands in our muse- 

 ums and you exclaim, "What bones!" 

 If you could call back to those bones the 

 flesh that once clothed them you would 

 exclaim, "What muscles!" Now, ex- 

 amine, if you will, the skull of a Frank- 

 lin or a Webster, and compare it with 

 other skulls, and )*ou cry out m aston- 

 ishment, "What a brain in comparison 

 to the body!" This is man's hour, and 

 the age of brain. In the short era of 

 written history man seems to be the only 

 creature whose growth has been percept- 

 ible, and that growth has been in brain- 

 power. We find that he has no more 

 legs or arms or bones or muscles than he 

 had ages ago. But way up in the attic 

 of the house he lives in is a pulpy mass 

 that is working miracles. There is the 

 focus of growth. There is the gem that 

 flashes out and seems by contrast to 

 make other intelligences dark. Man has 

 stepped onto the boards. He makes his 

 debut, and the world of created beings 

 sits dumb with astonishment at his act- 

 ing. He is the one whom the Almighty 

 "delighteth to honor." 



But the Everlasting Love says, "All 

 are my children, from the least unto the 

 greatest; respect them as mine. My 

 common love for you is proof of your 

 common blood. Happiness finds the 

 polyp on the rock; the flower by the 

 roadside; the songster in the hedge; man 

 in his home." 



We beat and abuse — we eat and digest 

 our poor relations, and think nothing of 

 it. The strong-necked ox gives up his 

 lite that the fibriue of his muscles may 

 strengthen ours. We dig up the clam 

 and pxill him out of his shell — poor little 

 roll of glutinous matter! — and eat him 

 without remorse. But when the rela- 

 tionship gets closer, and we find the 

 same fibrine clothing the bones of man, 

 we call the eating it cannibalism. 



Every time we make a feast a score of 

 lives are taken — lives just as precious to 

 their owners as ours to us. It isn't the 

 eating of the fibrine or the glutin that 

 hurts us, but it is the smothering of 

 mercy and the crushing out of benevo- 

 lence. The most intelligent minds, the 

 most exalted spirits, those farthest re- 

 moved from the animal plane, have al- 

 ways had the tenderest regard for ani- 

 mals. It is the true poet of Nature who 

 sees sisterhood in the flowers and broth- 

 erhood in the trees. When the plow- 

 share of Burns turned down the daisy he 

 saw the fall of a sister; and when the 

 same share went tearing the nest of a 

 field mouse, he pitied her as he would 

 have pitied a human being. 



So sacred has life seemed to some, 

 even among the ancients, that they would 

 eat nothing which had cost any creature 

 its life. 'There was a school of Greek 

 philosophy, centuries ago, which for- 



bade animal food. Among the Hindoos, 



at the present time, there are many who 

 never kill a creature however insignifi- 

 cant, but count it the hight of virtuous 

 self-sacrifice to become the prey of 

 beast.s. In Siam priests are forbidden to 

 destroy any living animal or vegetable. 

 The Banyans even brush the ground be- 

 fore them to prevent crushing an insect 

 in their path. Hospitals are built for 

 infirm and wounded animals. It's no 

 wonder that Englishmen conquered 

 India so easily. Englishmen living on 

 "rare roast," accustomed to the sight 

 and smell of blood, used to the sight of 

 expiring beasts, found but gentle foes in 

 the laud of fruit and rice. 'The Hindoo 

 respect for animal life arises from a be- 

 lief that the souls of men, after death, 

 enter into the body of some animal. 

 Other tribes of Southern Asia and I'oly- 

 nesia believe that trees are sacred — con- 

 taining the souls of men. All these are 

 acknowledgments of relationship, and 

 whatever the source of their religion, it 

 cannot be a bad one if it promote peace 

 among mankind and prevent cruelty to 

 the weaker races. 



The intelligence of animals and their 

 companionship with man forms the basis 

 of Esop as well as the philosophy of 

 Greece. There is something attractive 

 to a chi'd in the fancy that animals are 

 persons — that they talk and reason to- 

 gether. Watch children playing with 

 their pets, and you see the recognition of 

 the "poor relation." While tee, grown 

 proud and warped, having lost the pure 

 instincts of nature — see in animals only 

 dollars and cents, a good pointer, or a 

 fast trotter. It is the instinct of child- 

 hood to treat animals kindly, especially 

 the pet birds, dogs, cats and horses. 

 They are fed and talked to as if they 

 possessed souls, and when they die are 

 mourned with tears and buried with hon- 

 ors. How tender the feeling of that 

 little heart, that, like he who was great- 

 est in the kingdom of heaven, see the 

 love of God caring for the lilies of the 

 field and the birds of the air, and giving 

 them foliage and plumage that exceeds 

 the splendor of Solomon. 



But the child that is jerked aroTind by 

 its parents, and boxed and culfud, and 

 made cruel and combative by example, 

 will treat domestic animals and fellow- 

 playmates in the same manner. It is 

 unkindness to the brute creation that 

 makes us brutal. We come to think that 

 animal life is of little consequence, and 

 then it soon follows that we disregard 

 human life. A man insults you and you 

 strike him down. Once it was the fear 

 of a coward's brand that drove great- 

 hearted Hamilton to meet the traitor 

 Burr, and he was shot down in cooler 

 blood than one would shoot a wolf. Who 

 killed Alexander Hamilton'^ Whose 

 bullet slew the great-soukd Broderick'? 

 It was public opinion created by men 

 who cared little for the life or libertj- of 

 their fellowmen. And that this inditifer- 

 ence to our nearest kin comes along with 

 our indifl'erence to our poor relations is 

 a parent. The sight of blood makes oar 

 tender-hearted school girls faint; but 

 the fish-woman who spends hours daily 

 amid the gasps of expiring salmon has 

 no feelings of sorrow for the life she 

 takes. Let our little boys and girls go 

 to the butchers' shambles and get hard- 

 ened to the sight and smell of blood and 

 see the expiring throes of animals, and 

 soon they will think bnt little of inflict- 

 ing pain or taking animal life. And let 

 our men and women look on at a judicial 

 murder, where murderers die "game," 

 and the sacredness of human life is gone. 

 Frequent exposure to such scenes tends 

 to brutalize us. When we consider the 

 act of taking life, or its surrender, how 



much alike it is in the man and in the 

 beast. Neither wants to die — both will 

 fight for the precious boon. Our poor 

 relations love and cling to life as tena- 

 ciously as we do, and since we give them 

 no credit for immortality, we^take away 

 all the life they have. 



But we see a growing respect for our 

 "poor relations" in the fondness for ani- 

 mal forms in art, especially in painting. 

 Ancient art embraces nothing of the 

 kind. The human face and form was all 

 that was thought divine enough for art. 

 To be sure, they sculptured great griflBns 

 and dragons sometimes, but the}' drew 

 on their terrified imaginations for them 

 — they found no models in nature. Rosa 

 Bouheur, on the contrary, has built her 

 reputation upon paintings of a horse- 

 fair, in which that noble animal is ex- 

 hibited in every graceful attitude. An- 

 other of her paintings is a plowing scene, 

 with the tired oxen lolling out their 

 tongues, and one stubborn fellow pulling 

 back on his yoke, just as obstinate men 

 and women do occasionally. Laudseer's 

 painting of the "Dogs in Court" never 

 wearies. Prang's ehromos are, many of 

 them, animal likenesses, and they are 

 the most charming and attractive of anj'. 



The likeness of men and women to 

 animals is shown especially by carica- 

 ture. The caricaturist aims his darts at 

 man. The "poor relation" never suf- 

 fers by the comparison. Its a sort of 

 confirmation of the Darwinian theory. 

 If a man acts like an ass, or a monkey, 

 or a goose, the artist so portrays him, and 

 taking the hint he rises from bensthood 

 to manhood. If a woman talks a great 

 deal of nonsense or prides herself on her 

 plumage, he draws her portrait as a par- 

 rot or a magpie, and if the representa- 

 tion raises her from low things to high, 

 it brings its blessing. No one desires to 

 be thought to resemble our poor relations. 



.A.ud so we find the claim to kinship 

 follows us alike in the fields of physio- 

 logical structure and mental faculty. 

 Perhaps it is, after all, but a very super- 

 ficial covering of clothes and finery that 

 deceives us into the belief that we are 

 men. The creatures we are and associ- 

 ate with, stripped of the covering of con- 

 ventionalities, would stock a barryard 

 or a menagerie. The wolves we hunt 

 down for entering our folds are first 

 cousins to those who plunder our treas- 

 uries and rob our people under the cover 

 of the law. The ass •; we load with bur- 

 dens for the market have no 1 -nger ears 

 than we who bear the burdens of oppres- 

 sion and eat the thistles of poverty im- 

 posed upon us by giant monopolies. We 

 dare not point to everyday actions — to 

 common-place men— to average standards 

 of intelligence and morality to make good 

 our claim to manhood. It is only when 

 some stwut, brave heart, sorrowing for 

 the apathy and suffering of its kind, 

 strikes the keynote of reform that we 

 are lifted from our beasthood to the 

 glorious plane of trtie manhood. 



If a person swallows any poison what- 

 ever, or has fallen into convulsions from 

 having overloaded the stomach, an in- 

 stantaneous and very efficient remedy 

 is a heaping teaspoonful of com- 

 mon salt, and as much ground mustard, 

 stirred rapidly in a teacup of water, 

 warm or cold, and swallowed instantly. 

 It is scarcely down before it begins to 

 come up, bringing with it the remaining 

 contents of the stomach ; and lest there 

 be any remnant of a poison however 

 small," let the white of an egg, and sweet 

 oil, or butter, or lard — several spoonfuls 

 — be swallowed immediately after vomit- 

 ing; because these very common articles 

 nullify a larger number of virulent poi- 

 sons than any medicines in the shops. 



