The Making of the Brute

The Roosevelt press agents say that the long hunt is over, and that it “has been prolific in scientific results.” He and his promising son have killed some 500 large animals, elephants, lions, hippopotami, and other such like. It has evidently been fun for the slaughters, if one can judge from the bloody and brutal photographs of the royal butchers that have been disfiguring the pages of Scribner’s Magazine for several months. Where the scientific value of lion and hippopotamus hides comes in no one but the illustrious ones themselves probably know.—American Paper. (Communicated by Robt. J. B. Osbourne, M. D.)

(To Theodore Roosevelt)

Hail, blustering statesman, butcher of big game,
Less president than prince in pride of will,
Whose pastime is the princely sport, to kill,
Whose murderous feats unnumbered fools acclaim!
On all things big thy braggart thoughts are bent—
To strip the lordliest lion of his skin,
The bulkiest trophies of the chase to win—
Big bag, big story, big advertisement!
Roosevelt, for him whose callous heart is blind
To human kinship with the lower kind—
Seen but as “game” for man to persecute—
A line there is, that from some poet fell,
With inner meaning thou should’st ponder well:—
Remember, He who made thee made the brute!