ome. The lascivious clamor of
the flagellomaniac for more of it, constant as the clamor for more
insolence, more war, and lower rates, is tolerated and even gratified
because, having no moral ends in view, we have sense enough to see that
nothing but brute coercion can impose our selfish will on others.
Cowardice is universal; patriotism, public opinion, parental duty,
discipline, religion, morality, are only fine names for intimidation;
and cruelty, gluttony, and credulity keep cowardice in countenance. We
cut the throat of a calf and hang it up by the heels to bleed to death
so that our veal cutlet may be white; we nail geese to a board and cram
them with food because we like the taste of liver disease; we tear birds
to pieces to decorate our women's hats; we mutilate domestic animals for
no reason at all except to follow an instinctively cruel fashion; and we
connive at the most abominable tortures in the hope of discovering some
magical cure for our own diseases by them.

Now please observe that these are not exceptional developments of our
admitted vices, deplored and prayed against by all good men. Not a word
has been said here of the excesses of our Neros, of whom we have the
full usual percentage. With the exception of the few military examples,
which are mentioned mainly to shew that the education and standing of a
gentleman, reinforced by the strongest conventions of honor, esprit de
corps, publicity and responsibility, afford no better guarantees of
conduct than the passions of a mob, the illustrations given above are
commonplaces taken from the daily practices of our best citizens,
vehemently defended in our newspapers and in our pulpits. The very
humanitarians who abhor them are stirred to murder by them: the dagger
of Brutus and Ravaillac is still active in the hands of Caserio and
Luccheni; and the pistol has come to its aid in the hands of Guiteau and
Czolgosz. Our remedies are still limited to endurance or assassination;
and the assassin is still judicially assassinated on the principle that
two blacks make a white. The only novelty is in our methods: through
the discovery of dynamite the overloaded musket of Hamilton of
Bothwellhaugh has been superseded by the bomb; but Ravachol's heart
burns just as Hamilton's did. The world will not bear thinking of to
those who know what it is, even with the largest discount for the
restraints of poverty on the poor and cowardice on the rich.

All that can