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KIDD'S OWN JOURNAL. 



grown-up people. This made me long for 

 the time when /should be " grown-up ;" for 

 then, thought I, I will have my full revenge ! 

 Many a distressed parent watches the rose 

 fade from the cheeks of their heart's dar- 

 ling — its caressing affection change to frac- 

 tious peevishness. How little do they guess 

 the cause of this sad alteration ! This " cause" 

 is going on every day in the year now ; aye, 

 and with far greater opportunities for the 

 avoidance of detection. One lady takes any 

 character given her of a nurse or servant ; 

 and the other lady who gives it, gives it 

 knowing it to be false. But then — " it at 

 once rids her of a plague. Other people 

 must find out what she has found out, and be 

 hoaxed as she has been hoaxed. 1 ' Life is 

 made up of this variety.* 



Now, Mr Editor, if instances of neglect be 

 frequent ; and the influence of fear, not 

 love, be exercised over children, the position 

 of whose parents might seem an effectual 

 protection to them, — what is the fate of the 

 children of the lower classes? By this term, 

 I do not mean those who earn their bread by 

 labor and industry (the monastic maxim" to 

 labor is to pray," was a noble one) — I apply 

 it only to those individuals who are degraded 

 by habitual depravity. On behalf of their 

 children, I would, could it avail, appeal for 

 sympathy. I never read without a thrill of 

 horror, the oft-recurring accounts in our 

 public journals of savage cruelty to children; 

 and I must express my surprise at the little 

 punishment, if such it can be called, that is 

 awarded the delinquents. They are for the 

 most part dismissed with a remonstrance, 

 and with a " hope" on the part of the " worthy 

 magistrate," that it may prove a warning. 

 The helpless victim is then again given up to 

 its tormentor ! What must be the result? Can 

 there be any reasonable ground for "hope" 

 that those who were brutal without cause, 

 will be less so when the very punishment 

 they have received — trifling as it may be, 

 will, to such individuals, appear a justification 

 of their vindictive malice ! That they will 

 be " warned," I implicitly believe ; but it 

 will be to be more careful, to escape detection 

 for the future. 



In Germany, parents are compelled to send 

 their children to school. Whether in after- 

 life, education is then applied to its best 

 purposes, is not the question. If too poor 

 to pay, the Government pays for them. The 

 children may and possibly do, learn little ; as 

 their parents claim them just when they 

 might begin to profit. But, they learn no 

 evil. They escape being run- over, burnt, or 



* It is indeed ! And it is this artificial state 

 of existence that we want to assist in demolish- 

 ing. If we can do no more, we will fully expose 

 it. Sometimes ridicule has its effects, when 

 common sense is fast asleep. — Ed. K. J. 



scalded to death. Such calamities frequently 

 occur here, where the poor are obliged to 

 leave their children to themselves ; they are 

 not early perverted; compelled to earn 

 their bread by thieving, and hardened by ill- 

 usage. If they learnt but the One Prayer, 

 so sublime in its trust, in its submission, 

 in its forgiveness— but the one maxim, " Do 

 not unto others that which you would not 

 they should do unto you" — if they were 

 not, parrot -like, taught to repeat the words, 

 but to feel the spirit of them, to apply their 

 meaning ; the lesson would not be without 

 its fruit in after-life. 



The teaching of a child consists not so 

 much in the lessons it is taught, as in the ob- 

 jects around it — the example of those with 

 whom it lives — its habitual associations. 

 If it sees habits of order, of obedience, and 

 usefulness, it will in most instances fall into 

 them naturally. Unhappily, in the other 

 case it acquires, in a manner unconsciously, 

 the reverse of these qualities. It may not 

 be altogether irrelevant, to inquire how far 

 the habitual and early indifference to the 

 suffering of animals, — the making the torture 

 of them a sport, injuriously influences the 

 character. In the fearful reports of the 

 Journals, it will generally be found that the 

 delinquency which brings the criminal to the 

 tribunal of justice, is not the unhappy result 

 of a moment's blind anger, — not committed 

 under the maddening influence of revenge 

 for injury — but is merely one act of a long 

 series of cruelty. 



This cruelty has for the most part been 

 exercised upon the weak and unoffending, — 

 upon those who have the strongest claim to 

 their affection and support, — upon even the 

 most devoted and uncomplaining. How 

 often does one see the passive victim em 

 deavor to avert punishment from her tyrant, 

 while still. bearing in her own person evident 

 proofs of his savage treatment ! It has been 

 said, it is not crime which constitutes the 

 criminal ; it only reveals him ! To this I 

 answer : — 



" Nemo repents fait turpissimus." 

 People do not, cannot arrive at this last stage 

 of cruelty all at once. The cruelty practised 

 at first upon the poor dumb animal, readies 

 its full development upon the human vic- 

 tim. It is a natural progression. Nothing, 

 whether for good or evil, remains at the same 

 point. The young ruffian who, when we were 

 driving out some time since, carried a little 

 puppy and laid it down in the road in a di- 

 rect line to the horse's head, with the unmis*- 

 takeable intention of its being run-over and 

 crushed — will, in all. probability, progress in 

 ferocity until human life falls a sacrifice. Un- 

 til then, he will perhaps enjoy impunity! 



Should not the law protect, ere it punishes? 

 Is not the "protection " afforded to the un- 



