Life — October 17, 1895 — page 4: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

*>LIFE: While there is Life there's Hope.” XXVI.- OCTOBER 17, 1895. ig West Tuirty-First Street, New York. VOL. No, 668. Published every Thursday. $s.coa year inadvance. Postage to foreign countries in the Postal Union, $1.04 a year, extra. Single copies, 10 cents. Rejected contributions will be destroyed unless accompanied by a stamped and directed envelope. V ERY general interest has been taken in the recent address of nders Petrie before the British Association, in which he remonstrated against the British tendency to try to force European civilization on semi-civilized or savage people. Such people, Prof. Petrie says, are not tough enough to endure our sort of civilization, and to subject them to the habits and learning of the Europeans is simply to stupefy and Professor eventually kill them, He would have them develop on the lines of their own previous development, and he would have means pro- vided to teach the would-be teachers of such people what the processes of such previous development have been and to what stage of progress they have brought the peoples which have undergone them. Prof, Petrie’s observations reflect to some extent on the methods of missionaries, and have aroused a considerable outcry in consequence. But if there is any enlightenment to be got out of his views of how to deal with semi-civilized folks the missionaries and their backers should be sure to get it. Their job is one of the most difficult and delicate agoing, and to manage it right requires knowledge as well as great natural gumption and goodness of heart. Missionary efforts that result in the extinction of converted heathens do not satisfy this generation. { Tiizotocy has advanced so : far that to save savages from a possible hell-fire is no longer enough. What the missionary spirit of our age wants is to make life better worth living to them and to teach them how to keep alive. LIFE recommends the precepts of Prof. Petrie to the consideration of all who feel the missionary spirit in them, If they wish an example of wise dealings with a partially developed people they can hardly do better than study the methods of Mr. Robert Louis Stevenson with the Samoans. He carried civilization to Samoa, but he carried life there with it. He was a great missionary, the friend and colleague of the other missionaries, but the greatest of them all. But then he was a man of genius as well as a good man, and though good men, happily, are fairly abundant, geniuses are scarce. . . O long as Miss Susan B. Anthony continues to live, the place where she sits at the Woman's Rights board will be the head of the table. But whenever. Miss Anthony sees fit to relieve her shoulders of an: of her official mantle, Lire trusts that a considerable share of it may fall upon Mrs. Carrie Chap- man Catt. Mrs. Catt has the finest Wo- man’s Rights name in the world. In each alliterative syllable of it there is terror to the tyrant, man. part HE ever-vigilant Massachusetts Society for the Pre- vention of Cruelty to Animals has charged Mr. Shaw, a polo-player of renown, with cruel treatment of a polo- pony in a match game, and is prosecuting its case against him in the courts at Salem with earnestness and vigor. Polo is a very lively game, good to play and good to watch. The players like it in spite of its hazards, and many of them think it does them good. Some of the ponies seem to like it, too, and show an interest in it almost equal to that of their ride It must be admitted, though, that it strikes the average observer as rather a rough game for the ponies. They have to work like nailers, and run themselves out of breath, and they get a good many hard knocks, besides being jerked about and prodded with spurs. To offset these inconveniences they have the excitement of the sport, and plenty of rest and excellent care between matches. A polo- pony with sporting blood in him is probably satisfied with his lot, but ponies of sluggish temperament and only a moderate interest in sport would probably prefer a more hum-drum existence. Mr. Shaw's trial is not over yet, and it is not clear at this writing whether his efforts to make an irresponsive pony play effectual polo were unduly energetic or not. It is not inconceivable that a polo-player in the heat of action may be brutal to his pony, but it must be re- membered that polo-ponies are very tough little creatures, and thrive on discipline that would be utterly demoralizing to a family horse. It is pretty certain that they do not get harder use than football players receive from one another, and they thrive pretty well on their trade and seldom get laid up for any considerable time. For our part, we would rather be a polo-pony than a street car horse, provided al that we had a rider who knew his business. comicbooks.com