75 2 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
attitude of women toward war is no less intense. Grey relates that half a dozen old women among the Australians will drive the men to war with a neighboring tribe over a fancied injury. The Jewish maidens went out with music and dancing and sang that Saul had slain his thousands, but David his ten thousands. The young women of Havana are alleged, during the late Spanish war, to have sent pieces of their wardrobe to young men of their acquaintance who hesitated to join the rebellion, with the sugges- tion that they wear these until they went to the war. Two American ladies who passed through the recent horrors of the siege of Pekin were, on their return, given a reception by their friends, and the daily press reports that they exhibited among other trophies "a Boxer's sword with the blood still on the blade, which was taken from the body of a Boxer killed by the legation guards ; and a Boxer spear with which a native Christian girl was struck down in Legation street." It is not necessary to regard as morbid or vulgar the action of these ladies in bringing home reminders of their peril. On the contrary, it is a sign of continued animal health and instinct in the race to feel deep interest in perilous situations and pleasure in their revival in consciousness.
The feud is another mode of reaction of the violent, instinc- tive, and attractive type. The feud was originally of defensive value to the individual and to the tribe, since, in the absence of criminal law, the feeling that retaliation would follow was a deterrent from acts of aggression. But it was an expensive method of obtaining order in early society, since response to stimulus reinstated the stimulus, and every death called for another death ; so, finally, after many experiments and devices, the state has forbidden the individual to take justice into his own hands. In out-of-the-way places, however, where govern- mental control is weak, men still settle their disputes personally, and one who is familiar with the course of a feud cannot avoid the conclusion that this practice is kept up, not because there is no law to resort to, but because the older mode is more imme- diate and fascinating. I mean simply that the emotional possi- bilities and actual emotional reactions in the feud are far more powerful than in due legal process.
