THE TWO GOATS.
An Old Fable with a New Application.
(For the benefit of Bolton.)
Two bellicose goats once encountered each other in the middle of a narrow bridge spanning a deep gulf and a raging torrent. To pass each other seemed (to them) impossible, at least without much more careful and courteous mutual self-adjustment than either was at all disposed for. For one or the other to make way by temporarily backing, was, of course—to bellicose goats—entirely out of the question. The only alternative was clearly a butting-match.
Our angry goats entered upon it with great gusto. Heads hotly encountered, horns angrily collided. The harder the hits the less did either feel disposed to give way.
But a narrow bridge over a deep gulf is a bad place for a battle à outrance. The infuriated animals quickly settled the point at issue, in a way as final as unpleasant, by butting each other over into the gulf, leaving the disputed path clear for the passage of creatures more conciliatory and less cantankerous.
Application.
Two objects cannot occupy the same space—even in Bolton. Battles upon bridges—even iron bridges—are bad things. A quarrel between two parties—even if they represent Capital and Labour—cannot be regarded as satisfactorily settled by the destruction of both—unless they are thieves, or Kilkenny cats. It is much easier to get into a gulf—even the gulf of Bankruptcy—than out of it. To parties expiring at the bottom of a gulf, into which they have hurled each other, it is small consolation to see more peaceful persons—though they be foreigners—making better use of the bridge which might have carried them both safely over.