Los Angeles herald., 1892-06-22
THE BRAND Of CRUELTY.
A Society Wanted to Protect
Human Beings.
Saving Bodies as Well as Souls
Important.
Some Personal Ideas Of . Striking Order
A Plea for Less Labor and
More Pleasure in
Life.

EDITORS HERALD: There is a society
for the prevention Of cruelty to children
and animals which has branches in most
Of our cities. One of the objects OF the
society is to create public opinion
averse to cruelty of this kind. ! don't
know why they should draw the line at
children and animals and exclude grown
up people. There is great deal OF
cruelty to grown up people that ought
to be prevented, and no doubt it will be
when public opinion is created that
will not tolerate it.
Everywhere we see the battered and
damaged forms of human beings, Grip
pied and disabled by overwork, like old
broken-down horses. Fate has been
cruel to them, and their hardened Wis
ages too often show that this cruelty has
left its impress on their minds and
hearts as we'll as on their bodies. Dis
ease also has left its traces, and large
percentage of the people we see on
the streets in all walks of
life bear unmistakable evidence
of not being physically strong or sound.
The reader of human nature can dis
tinguish the signs of different kinds OF
| disease or excess or inanity. The face
and form of everyone is an open book In
which can be read tho history of the
past life and the prospects of the future.
The same physical laws which apply
to the raising of stock, apply also to the
| culture OF the human, race as physical
beings. But animals are wholly physi-
cal beings, while in the human the ply
sical is only the base on which the real
being is built. The real human is
union of the physical and metaphysical,
the latter meaning all that pertains to
mind and spirit as distinguished from
body. A knowledge of law, physical
and metaphysical, and it's application, is
necessary toimprove the stock of human
kind.
But society has not yet progressed
sufficiently to apply the ordinary laws
Of physiology to the culture of the hu-
man race. There is more and better
care taken of animals in some respects.
A human being is born into the world
with a certain amount of force, just the
same as in scripture it is said that they
are endowed with certain talents. If
this force is applied too much in merely
physical efforts and is exhausted in that
way there is not enough left for mental.
Thus it is that people who have to work
too hard and too continuously become
untitled for mental effort. and become
debased morally, sinking to the level of
animals. This is q natural law that ap-
plies to men az ply beings. Over
work is not good for human beings, it
degrades them, it prevents their develop
ment above the plane of animalism,
necessarily 30. A mans life spent in
as the real object and purpose of life is
| concerned.
And not alone is excessive physical
labor injurious, but so is excessive men,
tai labor of purely mechanical kind.
Let man work ten hours day at ac-
counts or columns of figures that con-
tain no education in themselves, then
he must necessarily take physical ex-
ercise in order to preserve his health,
and where does his time come in to
study or learn anything? This kind of
labor is worse than physical labor, for
after ten hours of physical labor 9 man
csnrest himself awhile by reading or
studying. -
Excessive physical labor produces
certain train of physical results, the
hardening and crippling OF body and
mind. Excessive mechanical mental
labor produces another train Of effects,
usually loss of physical power and an
inability to think outside of one line.
The true medium is balance of phys
ical and mental labor. A certain amount
of physical labor is necessary to main
tain physical health, and a certain
amount Of mental labor is necessary to
make the progress. in education, which
is the true object in life. Every kind of
mental effort is labor. To read news
paper or novel is labor and expense OF
vitality. Therefore we should not read
merely to pass time, as if time was
something to be made away with in
stead OF something to be economical and
made the most of. No one who under
stands the use Of life and iife's forces
ever reads to pass time. His mind is
Ikea store house, where all facts are ar
ranged in their proper places, and he
reads to get facts and put them away for
future use. He boards knowledge as q
miser boards gold, knowing that his
treasure will not be taken away from
him.
Now say that when human beings
are condemned to continuous overwork
for a bare living, that they are denied
the real purpose and use of life which is
to build up q character and home;
and being debarred from the real pur-
pose they then become the easy prey of
all vices, too often mere toys for demons
to play with. Overwork and poverty
with these hideous associations and ac-
compartments, vile tenements, gross
companionship, are the causes of nearly
all the vice and crime and cruelty in the
world. These things all 60 together.
Enforced idleness is another cruelty,
when people want and need to work,
and we find too often that the only
choice is between overwork on the one
hand and absolute idleneHs on the other.
This condition Of affairs is disgrace to
civilization and an outrage against
humanity. There is no need in thisag
for any human being to be overworked
like slave, nor to be forced to 60 idle
when he wants to work.
We ought to have society for the
prevention of cruelty to human beings,
and to find out who are in favor of this
state of affairs that we have now, just
for the love of it, and who are in favor
OF advancing to more humane and civil
lied conditions. This certainly cannot
be said to be an unworthy object for any
one to work or agitate for. The removal
of these injustices can be attained
| through education and enlightenment,
and with them the amelioration, of
many other evils which are bound up
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