154 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



resisted us, were angry because British " honor " was not maintained 

 by fighting to avenge a defeat, at the cost of more mortality and 

 misery to our own soldiers and their antagonists, can not have so much 

 " enthusiasm of humanity " as protests like that indicated above would 

 lead one to expect. Indeed, along with this quick sympathy which 

 they profess will not let them look with patience on the pains of "the 

 battle of life " as it quietly goes on around, they appear to have a cal- 

 lousness which not only tolerates but enjoys contemplating the pains 

 of battles of the literal kind ; as one sees in the demand for illustrated 

 papers containing scenes of carnage, and in the greediness with which 

 detailed accounts of bloody engagements are read. We may reason- 

 ably have our doubts about men who are so sensitive that they can not 

 bear the thought of hardships borne, mostly by the idle and improvi- 

 dent, and who, nevertheless, have demanded twenty-nine editions of 

 " The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World," in which they may 

 revel in accounts of slaughter. Nay, even still more remarkable is the 

 contrast between the professed tender-heartedness and the actual hard- 

 heartedness of those who would reverse the normal course of things 

 that immediate miseries may be prevented, even at the cost of greater 

 miseries hereafter produced. For on other occasions you may hear 

 them, with utter disregard of bloodshed and death, contend that in 

 the interests of humanity at large it is well that the inferior races 

 should be exterminated and their places occupied by the superior 

 races. So that, marvelous to relate, though they can not bear to think 

 of the evils accompanying the struggle for existence as it is carried on 

 without violence among individuals in their own society, they can not 

 only tolerate but can applaud such evils in their intense and wholesale 

 forms when inflicted by fire and sword on entire communities. Not 

 worthy of much respect, then, as it seems to me, is this generous con- 

 sideration of the inferior at home which is accompanied by unscrupu- 

 lous sacrifice of the inferior abroad. 



Still less respectable appears this extreme concern for those of our 

 own blood which goes along with utter unconcern for those of other 

 blood, when we observe its methods. Did it prompt personal effort 

 to relieve the suffering, it would rightly receive approving recognition. 

 Were the many who express this cheap pity like the few who patiently, 

 week after week, and year after year, devote large parts of their time 

 to helping and encouraging, and occasionally amusing, those who, in 

 some cases by ill-fortune and in other cases by incapacity or miscon- 

 duct, are brought to lives of hardship, they would be worthy of un- 

 qualified admiration. The more there are of men and women who help 

 the poor to help themselves — the more there are of those whose sym- 

 pathy is exhibited directly and not by proxy, the more we may rejoice. 

 But the immense majority of the persons who wish to mitigate by law 

 the miseries of the unsuccessful and the reckless propose to do this in 

 small measure at their own cost and mainly at the cost of others — 



