3^ THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. 



to account for the terrible atrocities inflicted by young people on the 

 dumb beasts. With what ghoulish zest do they pluck the members 

 of a fly ! And how gleefully do they witness the contortions of the 

 mutilated creature in its vain attempts at locomotion. 



I knew a boy who once took a pair of callow Baltimore orioles 

 from their beautiful nest, and, pinning them wing towing, hung them 

 across a branch, leaving them thus to perish while he stood by in 

 gleeful admiration of the grief-stricken parents trying to entice the 

 young ones back to their home. For this boy, at the time, I pre- 

 dicted nothing less than a termination of his career on the gallows, 

 but he ultimately became a captain in the Salvation Army ! 



It is well for our race that with increasing years, that is to say, 

 as we get beyond boyhood ; that period of lifetime which is most 

 pronouncedly savage, a change comes over the spirit that dictates 

 such acts. But this not always. For the records of the police 

 courts frequently bring to light many acts of almost incredible 

 cruelty as inflicted by mature persons on children and on the lower 

 animals. Such perpetrators 'are veritable savages, notwithstanding 

 their existence among ourselves, and they should be made to feel 

 the arguments of the law and of humanity, physically, for the simple 

 reason that they are totally unable to understand what they owe to 

 civilization by any other means. 



Closely related to this phase of persistence in savagery is 

 another inheritance affording pleasure of a low kind, namely, that 

 which arises from the seeing of animals inflicting pain on one 

 another, and this continues to afford enjoyment for a much longer 

 period of the modern savage's life, and it is participated in by a 

 vastly larger number of people. Hence cock-fights, dog-fights, bull- 

 fights and man-fights, which are still ranked among the amusements 

 of the populace. 



If these things, or rather the desires which prompt them, are 

 not savage inheritances, what are they ? And that tens of thousands 

 among us take a shocking delight in perusing accounts of how these 

 things are done, is evident from the amount of space that is devoted 

 to details in the columns of newspapers which regard themselves, 

 and are regarded by us, as exponents of public opinion. 



Games of chance are of religious origin, that is to say, they 

 were at first employed for purposes of divination, but in course of 



