JOY IN MISFORTUNE

Greymouth Evening Star, 30 April 1937, Page 10

JOY IN MISFORTUNE

CRUELTY OF CHILDREN. “Children are notoriously cruel,”l observes “Y.Y.,” in the “New Statesman and the Nation.” “Not the children we know, perhaps, but the children we hear about. Even this cruelty, however, most of us have' explained away as being not cruel,! but merely experimental, in inten-' lion. I have heard of a boy placing' a star-pointing pin on a seat on which' another boy would sooner or later sit; down; and 1 have always excused I him on the ground that he did not want to hurt the other boy but merely j to observe how the other boy would react to an unexpected sting from an upturned pin. The more profoundly! I. study nursery rhymes, however, the. more convinced I become that chil-j dren have an extremely hearty ap-i petite for the sufferings of their I fellow-creatures. To them it is a ( laughing matter that the three wise; men of Gotham who went to sea in at bowl were drowned. They arc not ( moved to sympathy but to mirth when i they read that the man in the moon' who came tumbling down and asked his way to Norwich—‘Went by the south And burnt his mouth, With supping cold pease-porridge.’' Children's enjoyment of this rhyme may be defended on the ground that it. is enjoyment of nonsense, but to me it seems that it is the phrase, ‘burnt his mouth,' that creates most pleasure in the nursling’s breast. I “Simple delight in the misfortune of others, whether human or of the dumb creation —this seems to be the dominant note in nursery poetry Simple Simon becomes ’ a laugi :m--stock because ho has not a pen . h

which to buy a coveted pie. T 1 of Tom, the piper’s son, who ? a j pig. is popular chiefly because ii "Is with an account of the sufferings olj 'Pom: I ‘Tlie pig was cal. and Tom was bcul.| And Tom went roaring down the| street.’ I

“As for the little man who had a| little gun, has not all the sadism of the addicts of blood-sports gone to his making? If he had not deprived) the duck of its life, would he ever) have been an object, of admiration in, the nursery? Even Doctor Roster.l probably a clergyman, is not spared the ribald laughter of the young. The fact that on his way to Gloucester he ‘stepped in a puddle right up to his

middle,’ must have been a cause of intense distress and humiliation him; but children do not mind that thev merely thank their stars hat they have been born into a world m which such things happen. “I do not wish to suggest that cliildren are entirely absorbed in thoughts of cruelty; but I do contend that pleasure in the misfortune both oi human beings and animals plays a disproportionate part in their imaginative life. They are glad that the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe whipped her unfortunate children. They are glad that, the farmer’s wife, cut off the tails of the three blind mice with her carving knife. They arc glad that Mother Hubbard’s dog was disappointed of his bone. They are glad that, Jack fell down and broke his crown and Jill came tumbling after They are glad that the old man who would not say his prayers was taken by the left leg and thown down the stairs. “The story of the old woman with the crooked sixpence who bought the pig that would not go over the stile is one long accumulation of horrors, even if the horrors are dually averted: “The cat began to kill the rat; The rat began to knaw the rope; The i ope began to hang the butcher; The butcher began to kill the ox . . The stick began to beat, the dog;

The dog began to bite the pig. . .’ “What images to conjure up in Hie mind of ;i, child! Surely, even Lewis Carroll, in his most cannibalistic moments, never approached (he sadistic exuberance of Mother Goose. Mother Goose has all (ho worst characteristics of Lewis Carroll, except, perhaps, schizophrenia. I trust the American professor will turn his attention to her, and after turning it, will turn the far-too-fascinating old witch out ofj every progressive nursery.’’