A XIXTH CENTURY PARADISE.

Observer, Volume 1, Issue 22, 12 February 1881, Page 220

A XIXTH CENTURY PARADISE.

A DARING EXPERIMENT— ADAM AND EVE REDIVUS— THEIR CHILDHOOD IN THE NEW EDEN — THE FORMATION OF A FRESH LANGUAGE—ATROCIOUS CRUELTIES.

Under the singular title given above we have, in two heavily written volumes of over 500 pages each, a detailed narrative of what we cannot help regarding as one of the most revolting and heartless crimes that has ever stained the annals of any age or country, and one that is rendered all the more horrible from its having been carried out in the sacred name of science. After reading the book, I put it down with a feeling of wonder strong upon me that such things as it describes could have been possible in our own time, and in a country which, if not directly under British control, is at least sufficiently under our influence to have enabled the Queen's representative in India to interfere with effect to prevent them. It would be a relief in reading the volume to be able to believe that it was a work of mere fancy. It is the reality that makes it so horrible ; the prosaic and 'matter of fact character of the unadorned narrative that "thicks men's blood with cold." One could wish that it were all a fiction ; that the pitiless playing with human life which it describes were impossible to contemporary human beings ; and that, however cold-blooded and cynical philosophers might dream of an experiment of the kind, none could have been found depraved enough to carry it on for a quarter of a century to the bitter end. In fact, were it not for the official confirmation that is contained in the two blue books published by order of the Imperial Parliament, we might .well hesitate to believe Dr. Oehlschlager's confession of his scientific crime. Six successive Governor-Generals of India have expressed their "disapproval" of this monstrous experiment, and have desired to have it put on record that they wished the British resident, at the Court of the Rajah of Rajpootana, to request, in the name of humanity that it should be discontinued. His Highness, however, took no notice of these mildly written protests; and it was not till the Queen personally interfered, and declared that while the Rajah thus continued to outrage public opinion he should never receive the prize for which he sought so long, the Grand Cross of the Star of India,, that he was ultimately induced, or rather bribed, to abandon his cruel purpose, and set his Avretched victims free.

liam fcsiug, Rajah of Rajpootana, is a different sort of person to the usual type of native Indian princes. His father, an enlightened man himself, resolved on giving his heir the education of a European gentleman. Kam Sing, weak in body, but strong in mind, availed himself to the full of his opportunities, and at the age of eighteen, when lie succeeded his father, it may be stated without fear of contradiction that he was the most highly accomplished potentate in Asia. His favourite tutor, and his present Prime Minister, was the German professor, Dr. Oehlschlager, with whom the idea of the "XIX. Century Paradise" originated. He says, "Men might have talked and argued for a thousand years without deciding the point as to -whether speech is a gift from ' Heaven ' — (mark the scoffing sneer conveyed in the use of the quotation marks !) — to man — one of those wonderful 'miracles' which are never thought of at the time they happen, and only become sacred when the priests proclaim them ; or whether it is born in and with man, and proceeds as naturally from him as the various characteristic noises for which they are remarkable from the lower animals. Every nation has some .supernatural account of the origin of language, which its people are compelled to receive on pain of being considered atheistical ; and though philosophers may have smiled at then), and philologists have exposed their absurdity, tlie mass, in the absence of direct evidence to the contrary, believed in them as articles of faith. In the emancipation of the human mind from the slavery of creeds, his Highness very justly considered that to show conclusively— to prove by the logic of facts — that language was not miraculous; that human beings, who had never heard a word spoken, would invent a language of their own by which to express their wants and their ideas, and that this language would be fundamentally similar to those spoken by other rude peoples, differing only in the unessential details of the sounds of words, would be a very important step in the right direction. It was with this object in view that the Ajmeer Paradise was formed." "To carry out his Highness's idea," continued the doctor, "it was necessary to isolate at least two human beings from all intercourse with the rest of the Avorlcl from their very earliest infancy. They should never hear a word of any language spoken. They should be thrown altogether and entirely on themselves for such speech as would enable them to clothe their ideas of things. And this should be done in a way that would enable the progress of the experiment to be closely watched, while the objects of it should remain unconscious that there Avere any other human beings in the Avorld than themselves. It was an undertaking beset with a thousand difficulties ; this realisation in a concrete form of an abstract idea. It Avas possible only to a Avealthy man, and one possessed of absolute power and determined will It involved great expense, laborious watching, time that Avould have Aveaned any but a person possessed of unflinching tenacity of purpose, and it Avas confessed at the outset, uncertainty of result." ' Dr Oehlschlager devotes the whole ot the third' forth, and fifth chapters of his first volume to an account, minute to Avearmess, of the steps taken under his direction to carry out his experiment. They would be amusing if Aye could shut our eyes to the cold-blooded cruelty which they involved. About twenty acres at the palace garden at Ajmeer, forming a square of rather more than 300 yards on each side was selected as a site for the nineteenth century Paradise. This was enclosed by a wall of solid masonry 30 feet in height, in which two chambers were constructed in such a manner as would permit the inmates to be seen and heard without their having tKe slightest idea that any other beings of the same nature as themselves

existed in the world. This garden was stocked Avith every kind of fruit and vegetable that grows naturally in India, and the richest flowering shrubs were scattered with a wild profusion over the ground. There was considerable difference of opinion at first as to whether the infants upon whom it was proposed to experiment should be left completely to themselves from the day they were born, food being conveyed to them artificially, or whether a nurse should be allowed in the garden till they were able to go alone, strict injunctions being given to her "that she was never, under pain of death, to let the children hear her speak one word." The advantage of the first plan Avas that the infants Avould be thrown altogether on their own resources Ayithout any model to copy from. " This," Dr. Oehlschlager thought, "would show conclusively whether walking erect on two legs was the means of locomotion that a human being would of himself adopt, or whether it was only in general use because one generation of mankind after another followed it from observing those about them." On the other hand, it was feared that the infants left to themselves Avould not survive the perils of the first year or two of life, and as the death of either would for the time destroy the experiments, it was decided not to incur the risk. But an opportunity occurred that the doctor was not slow to seize. He heard of a Avoiiian, a mute from birth, who had lately become a mother ; and, without consulting the unfortunate creature in any way, lie resolved that she should be the foster mother of the two future inhabitants of his diabolical abode. This woman was strongly attached to her husband, a lame patter living in the Alumbagh suburb, and resisted in the most stubborn manner the efforts of the officers of his Highness' s household to remove her from her Avretched dwelling. "This," says the doctor "naturally annoyed his Highness very much, and he was inclined to inllict condign punishment on the husband, as a caution to his subjects to maintain proper discipline in their domestic affairs, but as severity to the potter might have caused an injury to the wife's health, I persuaded his Highness to take a merciful view of the man's conduct, and for the sake of the experiment to pardon him."

Early in the spring of 1554 the experiment was initiated. The mute "woman and two healthy children, a boy and a girl each a day old, were securely fastened up in the Adjmeer Paradise, the children as it was then intended for life, but the mother only for three years — a limitation of her sentence which the hushaml acting as interpreter for Dr. Oehlschlagcr, informed her of. The manner in which the infants were obtained gives us a singular insight into the state of the law regarding the security of life in liajpootana a quarter of a century ago, and, for all we know to the contrary, at the present day. "l especially cautioned Akbar Ali " (chief of the eunuchs at the Ajmeer Court), "not to take any children but such as seemed perfectly healthy," says Dr. Oehlschlager. "And I likewise impressed on him the necessity of having both children of that day's birth. After a four hours' ride through the city and suburbs he brought back nine infants for me to select from, and I accoiv dingly chose a tine healthy boy, the son of a Hindoo water earlier, and a girl whose father was a Parsee money changer. The others I ordered to be restored to their parents, should they care for them." This appears to be about the only generous and considerate act which the author reports of himself in the whole of the two volumes. As he says nothing more of the rejected babies, let us hope that they were "called for" before the palace officials had their patience too much tried by their squalling. The mute woman and the two "free selected " children were lowered into the garden by means of a ladder, the unhappy fostermother being first made distinctly to understand, through her husband, that her release from confinement depended upon the care she took of the infants. From the very first day upon which the experiment commenced", the doctor kept a diary, which he has republishcd with all its crudities and absurd chronicling of petty and trivial details. The diary of the first few years of this singular and cruel captivity of the children possesses very little interest. A close watch was kept over all their movements, and even the most frivolous details were carefully noted down. Every night while they slept, food sufficient for a day's consumption — principally rice and fruits — was lowered into the enclosure, and an observer was always by, stationed at one of the numerous spy holes in the wall, to watch the progress of the unhappy residents towards intelligence. [To he continued.'}