Page:Brazilian short stories.djvu/15



All the barbarity practiced by the Holy Inquisition to subjugate heretics, the clever tortures of the medieval rack, Ottoman impalement, the torture of the thousand pieces, the red-hot molten lead, poured down the throat through a funnel—all the old science of martyrdom still exists to this day, cloaked under clever disguises. Humanity is ever the same cruel destroyer of itself, either in centuries before or after Christ. The form of things changes; but the substance remains the same.

As proof I here adduce the avatar of the ancient tortures: the postman's job.

This torture is qual to the wheel, the bonfire, strangulation, the strappado, the bronze bull, impalement, the cat-o'-nine-tails, the pillory, the hydraulic whipping-post; the difference being that these machines killed with relative rapidity, while the postman's job prolongs the agony of the victim for years.

A man goes into the service of postman in the following manner: the Government, at the hateful suggestion of some political "boss,"—the modern substitute of the "servant" of the inquisition,—appoints a citizen mail-carrier between two neighboring towns not served by a railroad.

The innocent man sees both honor and busi-