Mower County transcript. [volume] (Lansing, Minn.) 1868-1915, 1874-05-07

374.
DUMB FRIENDS.
The Affection of Animals for Man.
The death of poor "Joe," the Chin
panzee, from consumption, caused by
the climate to which, for the sake Of
English children and English lovers of
the animal world, he has been now for
some years exposed, will probably
cause a more widespread and keen re-
greet throughout London than any hu-
man death from the same cause would
excite in the same great city. "Joe"
was not only great amusement to the
visitors of the Geological Gardens, but
the passionate affection which he seems
to have shown for his attendant, SUIT
ton, has endeared him to the public.
The Daily Telegraph even says
that "when the night good-by came,
Joe would break out in q perfect.
frenzy of grief, tearing his hair,
rolling. upon the floor, casting dust
and ashes upon his head { if this be
really SO, by the way, the Oriental
mode of expressing mourning must be
deeply rooted in our animal nature y
land shrieking like q spoiled child. I"
THIS SORT OF AFFECTION
in an animal for any human being, is
one of the most touching spectacles in
the world. and certainly no people seem
more alive to the pathos of that kind of
feeling than the English of the present
day, thick-skinned and wanting in
sensibility as many of the continental
coutries think us. One of Sir Edwin
Landseer's few really pathetic pictures
appeal to a somewhat different modifi-
cation of the same feeling-the picture,
we mean, of the "Doctors," in whic b
the celebrated monkey which devoted
itself to the nursing of it's own order
was represented, while a young scrape-
grace Of the same tribe, withoutNsny
"enthusiasm of Simianity" in its breast,
has been hiding away stolen orange,
evidently provided for the invalid, with
grotisque gestures of delight. It was
this picture of which Mr.. Gladstone
said that for the first tame it had
reused q momentary wish in him that
instead of man he was q monkey.
No doubt there is something even more
singular in this disinterested devotion
of one member of the monkey tribe to
others needing its care than in the pas
sionate attachment poor little "Joe"
used tr feel for his attendant, Sutton.
The former contains an augery OF the
higher phases of human benevolence,
while the latter is only an extr eme
form of what We are all more or less
accustomed to in dogs, and sometimes
even in birds and cats-their recogni-
tion of some thing above themselves in
man, and an alwoat religious constancy
of devotion to it. But though it is even
rarer to find philo-canic dogs, or philo-
ornithic birds, or philo-pithecan
monkeys, than it is to find such Great
nres with q rare devotion to human
beings, the latter sentiment is, on the
whole, more pathetic, because it fastens
on being whose objects and aims as
regards all that he does for the Great
ures which thus love him are utterly be-
yond the comprehension, and too often,
indeed, quite without disinterested
regard to the well-being Of those
creatures themselves.
THERE Is A SOMEWHAT PATHETIC STORY,
ultimately vouched for, we believe, by
the late Bishop Stanley of Norwich Of
q farmer for whom goose formed q
most earnest and disinterested affec-
tion. The goose would follow him
everywhere, climb into his lap at night,
go shooting with him, climbing all the
hedges, follow him when he was at the
plow, turning deliberately at the end Of
every furrow, and walking back with
him along the next, but not unfre-
quently turning to fasten its eyes on
him with the most intense gaze. The
wretched man took it into his head that
ahis goose's mysterious love was omin-
GUS of some calamity, which he could
avert by killing it, and shot it one day
in fit of alarm. That shows how little
the man was touched by this curious
demonstration of love for him, and no
doubt the last generation was less
sensitive to the dumb pathos of such
love than the present; but even now If
poor little "Joe had not been SO gentle
and amusing, there would not have
been many to take much account of his
extraordinary love for his attendant.
The view that all creatures beneath us
are simply intended to serve our pur-
poses, and even their best love is of no
more value than to amuse and crafty
us, is still even more deeply rooted in
us than the notion that men played the
same kind OF. parts as puppets in the
hands of the gods ever was to the
heather world.
And yet is there not something in
this capacity of love of the lower ami
mails for man which ought to make us
ashamed to regard it as
A MERE SOURCE OF AMUSEMENT?
To us the wistfulness and humanity
of that kind of love-nay, even its will
full imperiousness when it discovers its
own p0wer-seem the only things which
makes the physical tie that, as natural
lists tell us, actually exists between the
lower creatures and us, one not dis
tasteful, but even honorable. The
power of loving is kind of germinal
power of resembling; for hearty loyal
ty and fidelity cannot exist without a
degree of community of nature, how
ever limited. And as there is nothing
more mysterious than the unsolicited
and uncriticising love of an inferior
creature, 80 there is nothing which
leaves q more distinct impression of the
divine origin of creation on the mind.
If q dumb creature can find no satisfac-
tion but in the society of man, though
it does not know in what man is super
ior to it, and feels our authority without
feeling our fitness for it, there can
hardly be superstition in the human
feeling which in the same manner in
sists on q like tie to God. The graft
tude which domesticated animals feel
to those who have enlarged their pow
ers by kind of education is curious
anticipation of human gratitude for the
education which theologians call pro-
baton, and politicians the law of pro-
gress. That the affection is less than
the intelligence of the lower animals
point to Something far beyond their
present grade, and that the pity and
delight with which this affection is re-
turned have so softening and humaniz-
ing an influence upon man, is surely
sufficient reason for admitting that
civilization should include in it's scope
much larger society than that of hu-
man beings. We think it is hardly
possible to enter heartily into the deep
er feelings of the lower animals for
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