Michael, Brother of Jerry | Page 3

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This etext was prepared by David Price, email [email protected]
from the 1917 Mills & Boon edition.

MICHAEL, BROTHER OF JERRY

FOREWORD

Very early in my life, possibly because of the insatiable curiosity that
was born in me, I came to dislike the performances of trained animals.
It was my curiosity that spoiled for me this form of amusement, for I
was led to seek behind the performance in order to learn how the
performance was achieved. And what I found behind the brave show
and glitter of performance was not nice. It was a body of cruelty so
horrible that I am confident no normal person exists who, once aware
of it, could ever enjoy looking on at any trained-animal turn.
Now I am not a namby-pamby. By the book reviewers and the namby-
pambys I am esteemed a sort of primitive beast that delights in the
spilled blood of violence and horror. Without arguing this matter of my
general reputation, accepting it at its current face value, let me add that
I have indeed lived life in a very rough school and have seen more than
the average man's share of inhumanity and cruelty, from the forecastle
and the prison, the slum and the desert, the execution-chamber and the
lazar-house, to the battlefield and the military hospital. I have seen
horrible deaths and mutilations. I have seen imbeciles hanged, because,
being imbeciles, they did not possess the hire of lawyers. I have seen
the hearts and stamina of strong men broken, and I have seen other men,

by ill-treatment, driven to permanent and howling madness. I have
witnessed the deaths of old and young, and even infants, from sheer
starvation. I have seen men and women beaten by whips and clubs and
fists, and I have seen the rhinoceros-hide whips laid around the naked
torsos of black boys so heartily that each stroke stripped away the skin
in full circle. And yet, let me add finally, never have I been so appalled
and shocked by the world's cruelty as have I been appalled and shocked
in the midst of happy, laughing, and applauding audiences when
trained-animal turns were being performed on the stage.
One with a strong stomach and a hard head may be able to tolerate
much of the unconscious and undeliberate cruelty and torture of the
world that is perpetrated in hot blood and stupidity. I have such a
stomach and head. But what turns my head and makes my gorge rise, is
the cold-blooded, conscious, deliberate cruelty and torment that is
manifest behind ninety-nine of every hundred trained-animal turns.
Cruelty, as a fine art, has attained its perfect flower in the
trained-animal world.
Possessed myself of a strong stomach and a hard head, inured to
hardship, cruelty, and brutality, nevertheless I found, as I came to