The Project Gutenberg eBook, Michael, Brother of Jerry, by Jack London

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Title: Michael, Brother of Jerry

Author: Jack London

Release Date: April 28, 2005 [eBook #1730]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MICHAEL, BROTHER OF JERRY***

Transcribed from the 1917 Mills & Boon edition by David Price, email
ccx074@coventry.ac.uk

MICHAEL, BROTHER OF JERRY

FOREWORD

Very early in my life, possibly because of the insatiable curiosity that
was born in me, I came to dislike the performances of trained animals. It
was my curiosity that spoiled for me this form of amusement, for I was
led to seek behind the performance in order to learn how the performance
was achieved. And what I found behind the brave show and glitter of
performance was not nice. It was a body of cruelty so horrible that I am
confident no normal person exists who, once aware of it, could ever enjoy
looking on at any trained-animal turn.

Now I am not a namby-pamby. By the book reviewers and the namby-pambys I
am esteemed a sort of primitive beast that delights in the spilled blood
of violence and horror. Without arguing this matter of my general
reputation, accepting it at its current face value, let me add that I
have indeed lived life in a very rough school and have seen more than the
average man's share of inhumanity and cruelty, from the forecastle and
the prison, the slum and the desert, the execution-chamber and the lazar-
house, to the battlefield and the military hospital. I have seen
horrible deaths and mutilations. I have seen imbeciles hanged, because,
being imbeciles, they did not possess the hire of lawyers. I have seen
the hearts and stamina of strong men broken, and I have seen other men,
by ill-treatment, driven to permanent and howling madness. I have
witnessed the deaths of old and young, and even infants, from sheer
starvation. I have seen men and women beaten by whips and clubs and
fists, and I have seen the rhinoceros-hide whips laid around the naked
torsos of black boys so heartily that each stroke stripped away the skin
in full circle. And yet, let me add finall