“Humane Society!” Muttering the words, he staggers onwards; a feeling too faint for hope still survives; and he bends his wearied steps towards the building. It is indeed a goodly edifice; Portland stone and granite, massive columns and a portico, are all there; and Humanity herself is emblematised in the figures which decorate the pedestal. The man of misery stands without and looks up at this stately pile; the dying embers emit one sparky and for a second, hope brightens into a brief flicker. He enters the spacious hall, on one side of which a marble group is seen representing the “good Samaritan;” the appeal comes home to his heart, and he could cry, but hunger has dried up his tears.
I will not follow him in his weary pilgrimage among the liveried menials of the institution, nor shall I harass my reader by the cold sarcasm of those who tell him that he has mistaken the object of the association: that their care is not with life, but death; that the breathing man, alive, but on the verge of dissolution, has no interest for them; for their humanity waits patiently for his corpse. It is true, one pennyworth of bread—a meal your dog would turn from—would rescue this man from death and self-murder. But what of that—how could such humble, unobtrusive charity inhabit a palace? How could it pretend to porters and waiting-men, to scores of officials, visiting doctors, and physicians in ordinary? By what trickery could a royal patron be brought to head the list of benefactors to a scheme so unassuming? Where would be the stomach-pumps and the galvanic batteries for science?—where the newspaper reports of a miraculous recovery?—where the magazine records of suspended animation?—or where that pride and pomp and circumstance of enlightened humanity which calls in chemistry to aid charity, and makes electricity the test of benevolence? No, no; the hungry man might be fed, and go his way unseen, untrumpeted—there would be no need of this specious plausibility of humanity which proclaims aloud—Go and drown yourself; stand self-accused and condemned before your Creator; and if there be but a spark of vitality yet remaining, we 'll call you back to life again—a starving suicide! No effort shall be spared—messengers shall fly in every direction for assistance——the most distinguished physician—processes the most costly—experiments the most difficult—care unremitting—zeal untiring, are all yours. Cordials, the cost of which had sustained you in life for weeks long, are now poured down your unconscious throat—the limbs that knew no other bed than straw, are wrapped in heated blankets—the hand stretched out in vain for alms, is now rubbed by the jewelled fingers of a west-end physician.
Men, men, is this charity?—is the fellow-creature nought?—is the corpse everything?—is a penny too much to sustain' life?—is a hundred pounds too little to restore it? Away with your stuccoed walls and pillared corridors—support the starving, and you will need but little science to reanimate the suicide.