One hundred years ago
ONE AVOIDABLE CAUSE OF CRUELTY
THE new Report of the National Soci- ety for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children is a very remarkable and inter- esting document, to one of the state- ments of which we desire to call special attention. It is that poverty and large families is certainly not at all a common cause of cruelty to children. "The aver- age wage of the cruel-doers in all the cases dealt with in the year [namely, 11,336] was 25s. a week; average family not quite three; while the average wages in the prosecuted cases was much high- er, and the average family much lower, both of which facts become still more striking as the crimes become more seri- ous." In other words, the worse the cru- elty, the better, on an average, were the wages of the cruel parent and the fewer were the children to whom the cruelty was displayed. That is the first result of the Society's now very considerable experience to which we desire to direct attention. And a very remarkable fact it is, — tending to show that it is not the pressure of want, but, on the contrary, the insolence which has waxed fat and kicks, which leads to the worst of these exercises of arbitrary selfishness and self-will. It would seem that the experi- ence of this great Society entirely con- firms that of the author of the seventy-third Psalm, who described cruel men as being "in no peril of death, but lusty and strong;" "They come in no misfortune like other folk, neither are they plagued like other men. And this is the cause that they are so holden with pride and overwhelmed with cruelty. Their eyes swell with fatness, and they do even what they lust." What the cruel need to curb their cruelty is a sense of power over them. Anything that tends to make them feel secure, anything that promotes wantonness and insolence, stimulates cruelty instead of softening the cruel by setting them free from the goad of want.
The Spectator 13 May 1893
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