ditions of the lesser animals.

Practically all of us will weep red tears and sweat bloody sweats as we
come to knowledge of the unavoidable cruelty and brutality on which the
trained-animal world rests and has its being. But not one-tenth of one
per cent. of us will join any organization for the prevention of cruelty
to animals, and by our words and acts and contributions work to prevent
the perpetration of cruelties on animals. This is a weakness of our own
human nature. We must recognize it as we recognize heat and cold, the
opaqueness of the non-transparent, and the everlasting down-pull of
gravity.

And still for us, for the ninety-nine and nine-tenths per cent. of us,
under the easy circumstance of our own weakness, remains another way most
easily to express ourselves for the purpose of eliminating from the world
the cruelty that is practised by some few of us, for the entertainment of
the rest of us, on the trained animals, who, after all, are only lesser
animals than we on the round world's surface. It is so easy. We will
not have to think of dues or corresponding secretaries. We will not have
to think of anything, save when, in any theatre or place of
entertainment, a trained-animal turn is presented before us. Then,
without premeditation, we may express our disapproval of such a turn by
getting up from our seats and leaving the theatre for a promenade and a
breath of fresh air outside, coming back, when the turn is over, to enjoy
the rest of the programme. All we have to do is just that to eliminate
the trained-animal turn from all public places of entertainment. Show
the management that such turns are unpopular, and in a day, in an
instant, the management will cease catering such turns to its audiences.

JACK LONDON

GLEN ELLEN, SONOMA COUNTY, CALIFORNIA,

December 8, 1915

CHAPTER I

But Michael never sailed out of Tulagi, nigger-chaser on the _Eugenie_.
Once in five weeks the steamer _Makambo_ made Tulagi its port of call on
the way from New Guinea and the Shortlands to Australia. And on the
night of her belated arrival Captain Kellar forgot Michael on the beach.
In itself, this was nothing, for, at midnight, Captain Kellar was back on
the beach, himself climbing the high hill to the Commissioner's bungalow
while the boat's crew vainly rummaged the landscape and canoe houses.

In fact, an hour earlier, as the _Makambo's_ anchor was heaving out and
while Captain Kellar was descendi