In one of my rambles I saw a collection of people, some appeared highly
elated, while others in stupid indifference were not the least affected;
I advanced, and found two boys fighting; in attempting to part them,
I had nearly got myself in the same predicament, from a motley bullying
fellow, whose feelings, if he was possessed of any, were more becoming a
tyger than a human being. Those who were before mute, appeared delighted
in the prospect of another scene of brutality, expecting that we would
decide our dispute with blows; I plainly saw that the most prudent step
for me, would be to leave them as peaceable as possible in possession of
the field.
From what source these barbarous dispositions spring, and how they can
exist in a country where information is so easily attained, would, to a
foreigner, appear a mystery; every child of nature has a vacancy in
their understandings to be filled up, and why it should not be stored
with rational humanity, let parents judge. Slaves from dejection become
callous, hence barbarous sports are congenial with their minds, in
proportion to the severe treatment they receive from their matters.
How degraded is that master who neglects to inculcate moral principles
into his slave, and how much more wretched are parents who attend not to
the improvement of their own children; too many instances of such
omissions momentarily occur; a parent who entertains a child with a
bull-beat, fixes a supposition in the tender mind that the creation was
formed only for caprice, and is verified in their tormenting domestic
animals; with years the feelings naturally become hardened, and the
youth thus brought up, only waits an opportunity to leave off all
restraint. This is plainly evinced in war, when the law is suspended,
murders and robbery become fashionable, and those very men who were
peaceable inhabitants, with exultation take the lives of strangers whom
they have never seen, and by whom they have never been injured.