CRUELTY IN SPORT. [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—It
is a far cry from two cold-blooded, youthful, but intellectual murderers in Chicago, to a genial, experienced, but -intellectual 'gentleman in. London ; yet the motive for the Crime that has startled America is identical with . the philosophy of life suggested in . Stephen Gwynu's article, The Case for - Certain Cruelties," in the Spectator of juhe 7th. ' The young murderers haye talked freely of their exploit and, so far as a motive -ean -be deduced from their confessions, that motive was in the subordination of every other consideration to that of securing new sensations. Indeed, one of these young monsters openly boasted to his associates that he had experienced every thrill—" even that of murder— and it was great." Compare such a pronouncement with this item from Stephen Gwynn : " Is 'there no • case to be Made for the right to inflict pain in order to heighten the joy of living ? On these lines, and on these only, can a case be made• for sport." Please note •that word "right" ; and then follow with the next paragraph ending : " The case for giving certain forms of pain—the case, if you will; for certain cruel-_ ties, is the need to preserve a possibility of adventure." What- is the essential difference 'between -the " thrill " which -the= young murderer confessed and " the thrill that comes when you bring down your game—that comes when you hook your salmon—that is in the rush of the fox hunt—it is adven- ture, and it is medicine to man's spirit. At the cost of the quarry? No doubt" ? Rather cynical, that last, yet not different in kind from the contention of the murderer who' sacrificed his own cousin, 'nor from that of -Oscar Wilde, in The Ballad of Reading " Gaol, where he modestly -implies that only he and 'Christ had ever gauged the heights and depths of human sensation. Just one more quotation : " For man is 'by nature an adventurous animal, and to deny
• him adventure is like denying him his manhood." The Chicago murderers could not wish for a better statement of their case.
In America the community has been shocked beyond words at this latest evidence of intellectualism gone mad.- It is as if a smiling landscape suddenly had- gaped- open revealing beneath it untold depths of horror and villainies not suspected. Wet here is a genial and gifted-gentleman in London, -whose literary talent has given enjoyment to many, advancing a philosophy curiously akin td that which led these-young people to violate every consideration of right and decency. How is it that from their youth and inexperience the reaction to intellect and education has been a crime perhaps without -a parallel in the records of the country ; and that from the experience, the humour or the whimsicality of a prominent writer has come precisely the same reaction so far as the underlying philosophy of the crime is concerned ? Is the condition of things herein- suggested a large factor in our present-day-life ? Is it inherent in -a-free-intellectual proees10 The recent- war; with its evidences of German intellectuality riding regardless over all that civilization has acquired through the centuries, is still too keen a memory to permit this question carelessly to be dismissed. Are there no greater motives in life than to " heighten the joy of living " ? The whole affair is dis- quieting. It is true that Stephen Gwynn says, toward the end of the article : " To kill for the sake of killing is disgusting, and there are instincts in humanity which prompt that way and should be flogged out." Quite so ; but is not one of those instincts the case " for the right to inflict pain in order to heighten the joy of living " ?
In a recent editorial on the Chicago murder, a New York paper said : " Cruelty for its own sake is no new thing, but in every age it has been- forced to seek a more or less respectable disguise. It has assumed the protean forms of religion, of art and of science . . . It is a far cry from modern Chicago to ancient Greece. Yet the '_ of murder—now called an experiment '—finds a parallel among the rites ' of the maddened worshippers of Dionysius, tearing living men or animals piecemeal in a secret grove."
And, finally, let me conclude with this paragraph from the same editorial, which may be commended to Stephen Gwynn and those who entertain ssimilar ideas : " Science should no more be blamed for the Chicago crime than religion for the ancient excesses committed in its name. Yet the case is not without meaning 'for those =reckless intellectuals who hold that art and science cannot be free until they are divorced from all other considerations, including those of common decency and -morality. To those with such views of higher education, Bernard 'Shaw addressed the following passage nearly a score' of years ago : If the acquisition of knowledge justifies every sort of conduct,- it justifies any sort of conduct, from the illumination of Nero's feasts by burning human beings alive (another interesting experiment) to 'the simpleSt net of kindness. And in the light of that truth it clear that-the exemption of the pursuit of knowledge from the laws of honour
is- the most hideous conceivable enlargement of anarchy.' "---
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