The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1899-05-18

nome, Anything tIaJ happens lar
enough away they will spend their
money and their lives trying to put
right, but the tragedies that happen
under their own noses, the creatures
that are being murdered in their mil
| lions-----" When she got excited she
always overran herself, so to say, and
| had to pull up. IAN these typhoid
germs" she said when she could
breathe again. dlphtheria germs, and
80 on. are quite good in themselves,
you know. They're no more Grim
| inal than your own butcher and poul-
terer and cat and dog I go further
than most people, I know" she said
with a grim kind of smile. my one
idea is universal justice. And I say
- the climate of the interior suits
them, why it's nothing short of bar
| borous to deny it to them"
Il don't understand you enc Bit" I
| got in at last
MY dear" she said, 1.-THE plain truth
is, we've no right to take their lives!"
But in self-defense?" / murmured,
| helplessly habbergasted: "surely it's
| justifiable-a--''
''Fratricide?" she chirped cutely.
but they would take our lives if We
didn't take theirs"
And that's a nice Christian prin-
ciple to go uron" she cried.
| well, how do you purpose to avoid
it?"
| Murders one thing and prevention's
another. You admit that, don't you?"
"Of course"
"And they've Just as much right to
| their lives as we to ours. People will
| recognize that some day. They're slow
| ly walking up now. One by one inno-
| cent and helpless lives are being pro-
| t"ctcd. 1t began with the earliest hu-
| manitarians who made slaves instead
| of sacrifices of prisoners of war, and
| it's only just reached dumb animals
| after all these thousands ot years! But
it's the tendency of the age, and I'm
only just very little in advance Of it.
Your children will hold views you think
| absurd, and look on you as a savage,
probably even as a murderer. And
some day there will be universal rec
ognition Of the universal law, and the
earth will be one huge paradise!"
Tut if the creatures are not to kill
each other, what will they live on?"
vegetables" she said triumphantly.
| "And much healthier, tool"
But vegetables have organic life,
too. and by-and-by, no doubt, we shall
find out that they have consciousness
and all the rest of it,"
'Then perhaps some chemical-you
confuse me-. And there was a va
cant, struggling, baffled look in her eye
that l did not remember to have seen
before
She looked so distressed that I want
ed to do nothing but make her COM
Portable again.
You didn't tell me what your pre-
vention was TO be-" / said.
She frightened up like a coal allght
in a draught, and turned to her OPEN
ing address in the book.
"Oh, rational clothing and pure food
and good air and avoiding contagicn."
But let us be logical, dear lady,"
said invitingly. "I can't see that you
have any right either to deprive them
of sust1nance and prevent them from
propasating their kind if they wish
to. And surely death by starvation is
very painful to them?"
She was silent Her eyebrows went
up in a three-cornered sort of way,
and made puzzled creases in all di-
rectOns.
MY dear. I wish you hadn't .sug
gested that" she said at last. Il
shall hardly know how to act"
And you must remember they live
only by killing the good germs in you
which have every bit as much right
to live as they"
She looked startled and passed her
hand over her forehead.
"Q-quite so,' she murmered.
And the good ones don't take peo-
pies lives and the bad ones do. And
we've no right" / said, going back to
grown-up tones, "since you take your
stand on right to let our fellow Great
ures be murdered by them"
She looked at me frightened.
They say 1 can see only one side
of a thing at a time" she said in
mournful confusion, very pathetic,
land ! hadn't thought of all that"
She looked at me hopelessly bewild-
cred and distressed and dropped her
hands in such a miserable, abandoned
way that I passed abruptly to the cur
ate's latest twins.
As | said good bye she smiled sadly
at me until the kissing-crust was a
mass of worried creases, and said:
My dear, 1 wish you hadn't made
that suggestion"
| bul WntH ran DICK TWO minutes
later for my sunshade, she had got
out the orange book again and was
reading happily i'm it her eloquent set
ting forth of the aims Of the Society
for the Prevention of Cruelty to Germs
and her face was slowly turning again
TO peaceful and benevolent kissing
crust. And her niece, Daisy who lived
with her, looked at her and then
smiled at me, as though she and 1
shared some amusing secret about the
little woman. l stared back coldly,
and Daisy, reddening, looked away.
For a week or SO l saw nothing OF
her. Then one day she came down to
me and stood in the middle of the
room with her hands spread out and
her beady eyes glittering with emotion.
"Daisy's got diphtheria," was all she
said
And l waited.
And Rudolf, the man she's engaged
to, you know, says it's all my fault.
lie says if she dies, / shall have killed
her. Oh, he's been saying such awful
things to met" She Clasped her poor
little hands TO her poor, big head. "Oh,
he makes me so bewildered and con-
fused. And he does nothing but ramp
and stamp about the house. l told
him he was mad and should be locked
up, and he said i was. And he said
it was no good saying anything more,
and said there was great deal more
TO be said, But, however, il ended