XI.
CHESTERFIELD. 1694–1773.
TO the expression of the opinion or feeling of Lord Chesterfield on butchering, given, in its place, in the body of this work (page 140), is here subjoined the remainder of his paper in The World. The value of such testimony may be deemed proportionate to the extreme rarity of any protests of this sort from those who, by their influential position, are the most bound to make them:—
“Although this reflection [the fact of the preying of the stronger upon the weaker throughout Nature] had force enough to dispythagorise me before my companions [in his college at the University of Oxford] had time to make observations upon my behaviour, which could by no means have turned to my advantage in the world, I for a great while retained so tender a regard for all my fellow-creatures, that I have several times brought myself into imminent peril by putting butcher-boys in mind, that their Sheep were going to die, and that they walked full as fast as could reasonably be expected, without the cruel blows they were so liberal in bestowing upon them. As I commonly came off the worst in these disputes, and as I could not but observe that I often aggravated, never diminished, the ill-treatment of these innocent sufferers, I soon found it necessary to consult my own ease, as well as security, by turning down another street, whenever I met with an adventure of this kind, rather than be compelled to be a spectator of what would shock me, or be provoked to run myself into danger, without the least advantage to those whom I would assist.
“I have kept strictly, ever since, to this method of fleeing from the sight of cruelty, wherever I could find ground-room for it; and I make no manner of doubt, that I have more than once escaped the horns of a Mad Ox, as all of that species are called, that do not choose to be tortured as well as killed. But, on the other hand, these escapes of mine have very frequently run me into great inconveniences. I have sometimes been led into such a series of blind alleys, that it has been matter of great difficulty to me to find my way out of them. I have been betrayed by my hurry into the middle of a market—the proper residence of Inhumanity. I have paid many a six-and-eightpence for non-appearance at the hour my lawyer had appointed for business; and, what would hurt some people worse than all the rest, I have frequently arrived too late for the dinners I have been invited to at the houses of my friends.
“All these difficulties and distresses, I began to flatter myself, were going to be removed, and that I should be left at liberty to pursue my walks through the straightest and broadest streets, when Mr. Hogarth first published his Prints upon the subject of Cruelty.[306] But whatever success so much ingenuity, founded upon so much humanity, might deserve, all the hopes I had built of seeing a Reformation, proved vain and fruitless. I am sorry to say it, but there still remain in the streets of this metropolis, more scenes of Barbarity than, perhaps, are to be met with in all Europe besides. Asia (at least in the larger population of it—the Hindus) is well known for compassion to ‘brutes’; and nobody who has read Busbequius, will wonder at me for most heartily wishing that our common people were no crueller than Turks.
“I should have apprehensions of being laughed at, were I to complain of want of compassion in our Laws [!]; the very word seeming contradictory to any idea of it. But I will venture to own that to me it appears strange, that the men against whom I should be enabled to bring an action for laying a little dirt at my door, may, with impunity, drive by it half-a-dozen Calves, with their tails lopped close to their bodies and their hinder parts covered with blood....
“To conclude this subject—as I cannot but join in opinion with Mr. Hogarth, that the frequency of murders among us is greatly owing to those scenes of Cruelty, which the lower ranks of people are so much accustomed to; instead of multiplying such scenes, I should rather hope that some proper method might be fixed upon either for preventing them, or removing them out of sight; so that our infants might not grow up into the world in a familiarity with blood.
“If we may believe the Naturalists, that a Lion is a gentle animal until his tongue has been dipped in blood, what precaution ought we to use to prevent MAN from being inured to it, who has such superiority of power to do mischief.”—The World, No. LXI., Aug. 19, 1756.