Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1884-03-27
NUMBER q.
WILD BEASTS IN INDIA.
Four Thousand Human Lives Destroye
by Them Annually.

Four Thousand Human Lives Destroys
by Them Annually.
A war which has been waged ever
since men took possession of the lands
that belonged to the wild beasts con
tnues in India to-day, with no symp-
toms of nearer approach to the sus-
pension of hostilities. On the one hand
are the human population of the PENN
sula, on the other the beasts of prev
and the venomous snakes, and as vet
the advantage, counting the losses on
either side and the cost of the perennial
campaign, is largely on the part of the
quadrupeds and reptiles. No truce is
| possible with such enemies. This be-
ing the case, and tn MISUNDERSTANDING
between man and tie beasts being 50
radical and so mutual, it seems improb-
able that the world-old antagonism can
ever find any other settlement than that
which has always been the rule of his
tory, that IN a conflict of races the
weaker must succumb, withdraw and
become extinct. The aboriginal tribes"
as we call them, of different countries
have thus been gradually, but inexora-
bly,, exterminated, and some are at the
present day undergoing the inevitable
process. Yet, after all, the true abo-
regimes OF a country are not human be-
lngs. They are the creatures in fur,
feathers and scales, and their claims to
selgnioral rights are authentic and in
disputable. Their title deeds, written
IN Jungle characters, in the cipher of
wooded mountain and rock-strewn val
ley, and in the hieroglyphics of the
desert, are still oxtant; and nature
writes In too large a hand for any to
miss her meaning. Man, however,
comes and traces with his pillow upon
the land the formal language of civil
lzatlon, and stamps the broad docu-
ment with the impresses of agriculture
and industry. He comes, too, armed
to the teeth, and in every dispute about
the land he appeals at once to force. so
that step by step the aborigines give
way, crowding together into the denser
forests and the lonelier wildernesses.
From these their last strongholds they
maintain the conflict, harrying the
herds that feed upon the acres which
once were theirs, and DESTROYING tie
crops that grow upon their ancestral
estates. Whenever one of their num-
Der ventures beyond the shelter of the
brake or the desert, it forfeits its life:
but they make reprisals upon every
human being who is rash enough to
wander within their restricted tenures,
So the fight goes on, fair give and take;
and so, apparently, it will go ON for
ever, or until the wild beast world is
extinguished.
At present, in India at least, there
seems little prospect of determination.
Indeed, the advantage is as yet on the
side of the beasts. Taking the returns
of seven years, we find that man has
killed about 100000 wild beasts
tigers, bears, leopards, wolves, hyenas
and others-or about 10000 annually.
During the same period the beasts have
destroyed $4,000 human beings, or
about 1000 year. Taking the re-
spective rates of the production OF
species, human and feral, it is obvious
that there is very little to choose be-
tween the two lists of casualties, and
that the beasts will make good the de-
ficiencies in their number as quickly
as, if not sooner than, the human
beings. On the side of the tigers and
their allies has to be added the adj
vantage gained of having killed during
the same seven years an annual average
of $4,000 head of cattle, or a total of
about $40, 900, and inflicted, further,
monetary expenditure upon the Gov
eminent of about E10,000 year. The
balance, therefore, roughly stated,
Gt ~
eleven head of cattle and e3 in cash,
for every five wild beasts In the great
fight with the snakes, the advantage,
numerically, is immensely in favor OF
humanity; for, while the reptiles killed
about $4,000 human beings every year
and about 1900 cattle, they lost of their
own numbers nearly 300, 600 annually.
Here again, however, the question OF
reproduction ought to he considered,
and it will be seen that the outcome of
the conflict is really very evenly bal
anced, for given number of snakes
will add 200, 600 to their numbers in a
far shorter time than the same number
of human beings will add $4,000. So
that, as the question of determination
stands in India to-day, it seems just as
plODuDle bllhI men anu LnDlf uOneStIc
cattle will be extinct before the wild
beasts and venemols snakes. In al
lance these two orders of deadly
creatures are very formidable, for the
multiplication Of human population
makes no difference to the snakes, ex-
ccpt that the number of their victims
increases, while the spread of cultiva-
ton gives the beasts of prey wider
field for reprisals. Every acre brought
under the pillow is protest against the
savage aboriginal life Of the quadru-
peds; but for every acre under the
pillow there must be brought several
acres under pasturage. Here the man
gives, in each head of cattle which he
puts upon his fields, hostage to the
old lords of the manor. They exact
their tithes, toe, these old barons Of
the woodland, with no considerate hand;
and, for the sake of single meal ,fr a
wretched pair of pillow oxen, tiger and
his mate will throw out of cultivation
twenty acres of arabic land. London
Telegraph