Nuts and Nutcrackers

“Humane Society!” Muttering the words, he staggers onwards; a feeling too faint for hope still survives; and he bends his wearied steps towards the building. It is indeed a goodly edifice; Portland stone and granite, massive columns and a portico, are all there; and Humanity herself is emblematised in the figures which decorate the pedestal. The man of misery stands without and looks up at this stately pile; the dying embers emit one spark, and for a second, hope brightens into a brief flicker. He enters the spacious hall, on one side of which a marble group is seen representing the “good Samaritan;” the appeal comes home to his heart, and he could cry, but hunger has dried up his tears.

I will not follow him in his weary pilgrimage among the liveried menials of the institution, nor shall I harass my reader by the cold sarcasm of those who tell him that he has mistaken the object of the association: that their care is not with life, but death; that the breathing man, alive, but on the verge of dissolution, has no interest for them; for their humanity waits patiently for his corpse. It is true, one pennyworth of bread – a meal your dog would turn from – would rescue this man from death and self-murder. But what of that – how could such humble, unobtrusive charity inhabit a palace? How could it pretend to porters and waiting-men, to scores of officials, visiting doctors, and physicians in ordinary? By what trickery could a royal patron be brought to head the list of benefactors to a scheme so unassuming? Where would be the stomach-pumps and the galvanic batteries for science? – where the newspaper reports of a miraculous recovery? – where the magazine records of suspended animation? – or where that pride and pomp and circumstance of enlightened humanity which calls in chemistry to aid charity, and makes electricity the test of benevolence? No, no; the hungry man might be fed, and go his way unseen, untrumpeted – there would be no need of this specious plausibility of humanity which proclaims aloud – Go and drown yourself; stand self-accused and condemned before your Creator; and if there be but a spark of vitality yet remaining, we’ll call you back to life again – a starving suicide! No effort shall be spared – messengers shall fly in every direction for assistance – the most distinguished physician – processes the most costly – experiments the most difficult – care unremitting – zeal untiring, are all yours. Cordials, the cost of which had sustained you in life for weeks long, are now poured down your unconscious throat – the limbs that knew no other bed than straw, are wrapped in heated blankets – the hand stretched out in vain for alms, is now rubbed by the jewelled fingers of a west-end physician.

Men, men, is this charity? – is the fellow-creature nought? – is the corpse everything? – is a penny too much to sustain life? – is a hundred pounds too little to restore it? Away with your stuccoed walls and pillared corridors – support the starving, and you will need but little science to reanimate the suicide.