Standards of Persecution
am sorry Miss Major thinks me so ill-read as not to have noticed that the Eastern barbarians are, as has always been their habit, engaged in persecutions ; " the secular Press " has been mentioning this frequently for several years, and so has my radio. I gather that what your core- spondent disagrees with is my remark that " we live (despite all that is said to the contrary) in a less brutal age. No longer do we burn, break on the wheel, or hang, draw and quarter...." Those familiar with the penal codes of the past must, I think, agree with this, though it is not saying much. I dare say some oriental barbarians still perpetrate what are known as oriental tortures ; but Miss Major (if she is not squeamish) might look up the penalties in common use in Russia during past.centuries. For that matter, may I refer her to what Alva was doing in the Nether- lands in the reign of Queen Elizabeth ; or both sides in the Thirty Years' War a little later. This world has never yet been humane ; nor man a humane species. All we can claim is to have climbed (most of us) a little higher up from our jungle-animal heritage of ferocity, as the ferocious centuries go painfully by. It is a question of degree. The common, rather glib.dictum that our age is more cruel than past ages seems to me to be the,result of inadequate historical research,—Yours
faithfully, _ ROSE MACAULAY. 20 Hinde House, Hinde Street, W.I.
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