UNDER the startling and somewhat discomforting title of “Seventy Years among Savages,” Mr. Salt relates his experience in life and the opinions which he has based upon it. The “Savages” here spoken of are the men and women of the day, who vainly imagine themselves civilized. With his usual modesty Mr. Salt includes himself; he might with equal modesty have claimed a little superiority over some, by reason of his clearer insight, knowledge, and confession of his faults, which is the acknowledged first step to reform—and further by reason of the good labours which he has packed into his period of life in order to bring us just a little nearer to civilization.
Reading his book, as young ladies do novels, the last chapter first, we were glad to find a grain of comfort which Mr. Salt had cruelly kept to the very end. On p. 229 we read that we talk of relapses into barbarism, when in reality we have not emerged from barbarism at all; and “the knowledge of that fact is the only rational solace that can be found. . . , For if this were a civilized age, the prospect would be without hope; but seeing that we are not civilized—that as yet we have only distant glimpses of civilization—we can still have faith in the future.” The author allows that since “the ideal is always in advance of the actual, and it is easy to show that any present stage of society falls far short of what it might be and ought to be, the distinction between savagery and civilization is a matter of names. “This in one sense is true.” But Mr. Salt warns us that “it is also true that names are of great importance as reacting upon conduct, and that to use flattering titles as a veil for cruel practices gives permanence to evils that otherwise would not be permitted. Our present self-satisfaction in what we are pleased to call our civilization is a very serious obstacle to improvement.”
When Mr. Salt speaks of his fellow-men as “savages,” he wishes it to be clearly understood that he uses the term in its “natural and inoffensive meaning as implying simply a lack of the higher civilization and not any personal cruelty or blood-thirstiness; and (he goes on) “I would emphasize the fact that the kindliness and good nature of my fellow-countrymen are in one direction quite as marked features of their character as their savagery is in another.” He divides our savage customs under two heads, first those that relate to human beings, second those that relate to the so-called lower animals. It is in their treatment of the non-human races, according to our author, that the surest evidences of barbarism come out. Under this head he deals with flesh-eating, the wearing of furs and feathers, blood sports, the zoological gardens, caged birds and other pets and whatever else infringes the “Rights of Animals.” Most readers of the VEGETARIAN MESSENGER are acquainted, or ought to be, with Mr. Salt’s excellent book bearing that title, as also with his articles which he has from time to time contributed to our magazine. A few of the chapters in the present volume “are reprints from the VEGETARIAN MESSENGER, which makes a reviewer in The Observer say, “we really must subscribe to the VEGETARIAN MESSENGER.” The review is headed the “VEGETARIAN MESSENGER.” “Unlike the writer of a notice in The Times—a very favourable one— we like Mr. Salt all the better because of his “fads,” not in spite of them, for he preaches “our doxy” and we are glad that he is preaching it in this latest book to a larger public than could possibly be reached through the pages of the VEGETARIAN MESSENGER or THE HUMANITARIAN. He sets it forth, moreover, in such a way that the reader is drawn on from chapter to chapter because of their commanding interest. One might have thought that a book dealing with cruelty to man and beast, “man’s inhumanity to man,” would be dull and repelling. Such subjects as vegetarianism, blood sports, murderous millinery, flogging, penal laws and the like are not calculated to attract the ordinary reader. But this book is so “deep-tinctured with humanity,” lets the saving grace of humour illuminate even such dark topics as those indicated, and tells of so many well known and. interesting personalities, with whom the author has had intimate contact, that it is thoroughly readable from end to end and in some parts entertaining. We should like, did our space permit, to quote some of the excellent sketches in brief given of friends and co-workers on the Humanitarian League, to which Mr. Salt acted for many years as Hon. Secretary and editor of its organ, The Humanitarian. Those of Mrs. Besant, Edward Carpenter, George Bernard Shaw, Elisée Reclus, Edward Maitland, Dr. Lyttelton and Howard Williams are of special interest to vegetarians, though not confined to them. The long list includes among others :—Robt. Buchanan, G. K. Chesterton, F. W. Cornish, Col. Coulson, Walter Crane, Clarence Darrow, Lady Florence Dixie, J. Passmore Edwards, Dr. F. J. Furnivall; Sir George Greenwood, Thos. Hardy, W. H. Hudson, Prince Kropotkin, George Meredith, George Moore, ‘J: Howard’ Moore, Wm. Morris, “Ouida,” Philip G. Peabody, Rossetti, W. J. Stillman, Rev. J. Stratton and R. W. Trine.
Mr. Salt has been a vegetarian for many years. As a sixth form boy at Eton, he chose vegetarianism as the subject for “Declamations,” which had to be composed and “spouted,” to use his own term; by two of the sixth form boys, who took opposite sides. Dr. Horn by, the then headmaster, was greatly disgusted. Some few years later, when on leaving Cambridge, Mr, Salt had returned to be one of the assistant masters at Eton, he lost his Post, after, ten, years’ service, for being a vegetarian and showing socialistic tendency. Dr. Warre said “It’s the vegetarianism,” implying that the change of diet had influenced Mr. Salt’s mode of thought. We are glad that it did. When he can write, that in all the hundreds of sermons which he heard preached at Eton, there was never a word said against cruelty, it is clear that Eton was not the place for him. It was reserved for another vegetarian to become its headmaster. “Little did I think,” wrote Dr. Lyttelton after his appointment, “when used to chaft you about cabbages that it would come to this!”
In spite of a note of disappointment after a life spent in the cause of humanitarianism, which is noticeable in this book, Mr. Salt is not without consolation or hope. His concluding chapter contains the following passages:—
“Humanitarians must expect little but claim much, must know that they will see no present fruits of their labours, but that their labours are nevertheless of far reaching importance. Let those who have been horrified by the spectacle of an atrocious war resolve to support the peace movement more strongly than ever; but let them support the still wider and deeper humanitarian “movement of which pacificism is but a part, in as much as all humane causes are ultimately and essentially one.”
“The one and only talisman is Love. Active work has to be done, but if it is to attain its end, it is in the spirit of love that it must be under- taken. . . . If there are light-waves, heat-waves, sound-waves, may there not also be love-waves? How if we sent out a daily succession of these to earth’s uttermost parts? A benediction is as easily uttered as a curse.” “No League of Nations, or of individuals, can avail without a change of heart. Reformers of all classes must recognise that it is useless to preach peace by itself, or socialism by itself, or vegetarianism by itself, or kindness to animals by itself. The cause of each and of all the evils that affect the world is the same—the general lack of humanity, the lack of the knowledge that, all sentient life is akin and that he who injures a fellow-being is in fact doing injury to himself. The prospects of a happier society are wrapped up in this despised and neglected truth.”
But “Many usages, which if prevalent in a civilized country, might — well make one despair of human-kind, are seen to be like the crimes of children, symptoms of the thoughtless infancy of our race. We are not civilized folk who have degenerated into monsters, but untamed savages who, on the whole, make a rather creditable display, and may in future centuries become civilized.”
“Seventy Years among Savages,” by Henry S. Salt. London: George Allen & Unwin, pp. 251. Price 12/9
The Vegetarian Messenger and Health Review, Vol. XVIII No. 3, March 1921, pp. 28-30
Book Reviewed: Seventy Years Among Savages