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. 19, 1863.]

amount of sympathetic care and help bestowed on those of our fellow-men who are incapable of caring for and of tending themselves, is, as it were, a sort of measure of the degree of civilisation to which a nation has attained. This will appear more distinctly if we trace the birth and growth of the sentiments of affection for our kind, and of that pity for the defenceless which is akin to love. These sentiments are almost, if not entirely, unknown to the brute creation. It is well established that animals torment and worry to death those of their species that are unable to hold their own in the struggle for life. It is true that we read of and even witness acts on the part of animals which indicate that they may entertain a species of affection towards each other; but these, when closely examined, will be found to partake rather of the nature of instinctive than of sympathetic emotions. Thus, birds that have been kept together in cages, have been known to grieve to death through the loss of a companion. But here the birds have been restricted to an artificial life; and the loss of a companion may to them be equivalent to the loss of the only condition which rendered captivity tolerable. Wild birds have never been known to die through the loss of a mate. Horses, again, if severed from their companions, frequently become restless and evidently unhappy. This, however, arises out of an instinctive feeling necessary to the preservation of the horse in his natural state; and it is the trace of this feeling that we perceive in the domesticated race. The horse, like other herbivora, is gregarious. Herbivorous animals flock to their kind for mutual protection against the carnivora. Society is with them the means of mutual preservation. A pretty story is told of the affection exhibited by a spaniel, but this, when analysed, resolves into a singularly powerful development of the maternal instinct. The late Earl of Albemarle, when Master of the Horse to the Queen, had a fine breed of black-and-tan spaniels. One of these had a litter, and shortly afterwards died. The plaintive cries of the puppies induced a young female of the same breed to foster and warm them. She was enabled to bring them all up, and nothing could exceed the affection with which she performed her self-imposed task.

If we turn from animals to savage tribes, we shall still find them wanting in the gentler emotions of more civilised communities. The tribe is banded together like a flock of herbivorous creatures, for mutual protection. To each other, therefore, they must exercise a certain forbearance and amity, without which the tribe could not exist. But towards other tribes they have, as a rule, but one feeling, that of animosity; they treat their prisoners with shocking barbarity; the idea of kindness to a captive is unheard of altogether. They have scarcely any respect for the weaker sex, but treat them as a sort of superior slaves, impose on them all the hard and dirty work, and do not permit them to sit or eat unasked in the presence of their lords.

The more that civilisation advances, the more marked is the improvement in the manners and customs which relate to the fairer portion of creation. Hence, in the Middle Ages, arose that chivalrous feeling which even at this distance of time we are never weary of admiring. Chivalry, however, though noble and admirable, dealt only with a particular class; it was confined to the gentle among men, and to the high-born among damsels. It is to later years that we must look for such instances of national triumph of reason over instinct as are to be found in the extirpation of villenage, the passing of poor-laws, and the abolition of slavery. And these instances of self-sacrifice, be it observed, are connected more especially with the humbler classes—those who, through the simple accident of birth, are least fitted to alleviate their own sufferings.

At the present day the moral and social condition of the lower classes is deservedly exciting much attention; and many and strenuous efforts have been made to improve it. We see parliament engaged in attempts, hitherto not very happy ones, at reforming our criminals. Lately, also, the well-being of our private soldiers has occupied the legislature; and by this time important barracks, at Aldershot and elsewhere, are provided with a sort of club-room, where current literature, innocent amusements, and light refreshments can be obtained. We see also private benevolence extending itself along similar paths. Money is freely subscribed, rooms are hired and comfortably furnished, books and newspapers are purchased. The means of obtaining meals at cost price are supplied, and the working-man’s club, reading-room, or institute, springs into being. The late Prince Consort, whose enlightened mind recognised the need of raising the standard of the labouring classes, and who saw that the only method of permanently benefiting them is to enlarge their minds, was a liberal patron of these and similar institutions. He strove, by designing model cottages and model lodging-houses, to afford our working population better and more loveable dwellings, to give them homes in which they could feel more pride and pleasure than in a smoky, beery, public-house parlour. From numerous instances of the Prince’s practical philanthropy, we single out, as one of the most touching, his exertions in favour of the ballast-heavers of the port of London. These men were a demoralised set, and were prevented, by the customs of their trade, from bettering themselves. Formerly they could get work only through a body of low river-side publicans and extortionate middlemen. These harpies compelled the unfortunate ballast-heavers to drink before they would give them a job; they forced them to drink while at it, and again after it was done. The consequence was that the men became a dissolute body; only a very small portion of their wages was paid in money, and that which did escape the clutches of the publicans and middlemen reached home through the hands of a drunkard. The Prince Consort took up their case, and got a clause inserted in the Merchant Shipping Act, which put the ballast-heavers under the control of the Corporation of the Trinity House. The corporation passed rules for their employment, got their wages paid in money, gave