e money without work, and that on the face of it is
a dishonourable aspiration; if he robs some one, I do not in the
faintest degree try to palliate his crime--he is a responsible being, or
ought to be one, and he has no excuse for pilfering. I should never aid
any man who suffered through betting, and I would not advise any one
else to do so. My appeal to the selfish instincts of the gudgeons who
are hooked by the bookmakers is made only for the sake of the helpless
creatures who suffer for the follies and blundering cupidity of the
would-be sharper. I abhor the bookmakers, but I do not blame them
alone; the sight of means to do ill deeds makes ill deeds done, and they
are doubtless tempted to roguery by the very simpletons who complain
when they meet the reward of their folly. I am solely concerned with the
innocents who fare hardly because of their selfish relatives' reckless
want of judgment, and for them, and them alone, my efforts are engaged.

_May, 1888_

_DEGRADED MEN_.

The man of science derives suggestive knowledge from the study of mere
putrefaction; he places an infusion of common hay-seeds or meat or fruit
in his phials, and awaits events; presently a drop from one of the
infusions is laid on the field of the microscope, and straightly the
economy of a new and strange kingdom is seen by the observer. The
microscopist takes any kind of garbage; he watches the bacteria and
their mysterious development, and he reaches at last the most
significant conclusions regarding the health and growth and diseases of
the highest organizations. The student of human nature must also bestow
his attention on disease of mind if he would attain to any real
knowledge of the strange race to which he belongs. We develop, it is
true, but there are modes and modes of development. I have often pointed
out that a steady process of degeneration goes on side by side with the
unfolding of new and healthy powers in the animal and vegetable
kingdoms. The great South American lizards grow strong and splendid in
hue amid the rank freedom of pampas or forest; but their poor relatives
in the sunless caves of Transylvania grow milky white, flabby, and
stone-blind. The creatures in the Kentucky caves are all aborted in some
way or other; the birds in far-off islands lose the power of flight, and
the shrivelled wings gradually sink under the skin, and show us only a
tiny network of delicate bones when the creature is stripped to the