Year: 1871

of the Noble Savage ever putin print

 To come to the point at once, beg

 to say that 1 have not the least belie1

 in the Noble Savage. 1 consider him

 a prodigious nuisance, and an enor-

 nous superstition. His calling rum

 fire water, and me a pale face, wholly

 fail to reconcile me to him. l don't

 care what he calls me, call him sav-

 age, and l call a savage something

 highly desirable to be civilized of the

 face of the earth. 1 think d mere gent

 (which take to be the lowest form ot

 civilization) better than a bowling,

 whistling, clucking, stamping, jump

 ing, tearing savage. It is all one to

 me, whether he sticks q fish bone

 through his visage, or bits of trees

 through the lobes of his ears, or bird $

 feathers i'll his head; whether he flat

 tens his head between two boards, or

 spreads his nose over the breadth of

 hls face, or drags his lower lip down by great weights, or blackens his teeth, or knocks them out, or paints one cheek red and the other blue, or tattoos him. self or oils himself, or rubs his body with fat, or crimps it with knives. Yielding to whichsoever of these ec- centricities, he IS savage--cruel, false, thievish, murderous; addicted more or less to grease, entrails, and beastly customs wild animal with the ques- tionable gift of boasting; a conceited, tiresome, bloodthirsty, monotonus hum- bug.

 Yet it is extraordinary to observe how some people will talk about him, as they talk about the good old times; ; how they regret his disappearance, in the course of this world development, from such and such lands where his absence is a blessed relief and an in dispensable preparation for the sowing of the very first seeds of any influence that can exalt humanity; how, even with the evidence of himself before them, they will either be determined to believe, or will suffer themselves to be persuaded into believing, that he is something which their five senses tell them he is not.

 Mine are no new views of tce noble savage. The greatest writers on nat tural history found him out long ago. Buffon knew what he was, and show ed why he is the sulky tyrant that he is to his women, and how it happens (Heaven be praised } that his race is spare ill numbers. For evidence of the quality of his moral nature, pass him. self for a moment and refer to his faithful dog" Has he ever improved a dog or attached dog, since his nobility first ran wild in woods, and was brought down (at a very long shot) by Pope! Or does the animal that is the friend of man always degenerate i'll his low society

 It is not the miserable nature of the noble savage that is the new thing 1t is the whimpering over him with maudlin admiration, and the affecting to regret him, and the drawing of any comparison of advantage between the blemishes of civilization and the tenor of his swinish life. There may have been a change now and then in those diseased absurdities. but there Is none in him.

 The noble savage sets king to reign over him, to whom he submits his life and limbs without murmur or ques- ton, and whose whole life is passed chin deep in a lake of blood; but who after killing necessarily, is in his turn killed by his relations and friends, the moment 6 gray hair ap- pears on his head All the noble sav- ages wars with his fellow-savages land he takes no pleasure in anything else) are wars of extermination-which is the best thing I know of him, and the most conforta ble to my mind when I look at him. He has no moral feelings of any kind, sort, or description and ais " mission may be summed up as simply diabolical.

 The ceremonies with which he faint " diversifes his life are, of course, of ! kindred nature. If he wants wife, le appears before the kennel of the gentleman whom he has selected fer ,ather-in-law, attended by party of nale friends of a very strong flavor, who screech and whistle and stamp an | lfer of so many COWS for the young ( ady's hand. The chosen father-in- ( aw-also supported by a high flavor I d party of male friends-screeches, and yells, (being seated on q