Page:Dr Stiggins, His Views and Principles.pdf/105

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

Dr. Stiggins:

in the wrong, greedy, cruel, rapacious, murderous? And in what better way than this can we prove our intense pride and joy in England? Was Cæsar an enemy to his wife when he declared that she must be above suspicion? Am I the foe of my little ones when I lovingly correct them for their childish faults? What do we call the parent who suffers his infants to have their own way in all things; to torment animals, to annoy the neighbours, to swear, to drink, to steal? Surely such parents are not friends to their children, but rather their deadliest foes; and surely we do well not to keep silence over the misdeeds of our wandering sons. Which is the worse, think you; to pull the kitten's tail or to cut off the heads of the hapless Mahdi, of the deeply-wronged Bambaata, victims both of English lust for gold? Which is the blacker crime, for my little boy to annoy the bald old gentleman in the next garden by his sportive exercises with the pea shooter, or for the English jingoes and maffickers to annoy our good friends at Berlin by

100