Elizabeth Cady Stanton SPEECHES & WRITING FILE Article: "Jails and Jubilees", The Open Court [n.d.] THE OPEN COURT. 175 [real and positive beyond. Thus when we declare that something has become annihilated, all we can mean is that it has passed from the perceptible into the imperceptible. When we propose to annihilate anything we can chase it away, and away, and away, till our mind gets tired ; but the moment we stop, as stop we must, it is there at the end mocking us. To think a " vacuum" is thus an impossibility as a process of endless centrifugal mental motion. But if we mean by annihilation a disappearance, which is all that can be meant, it is possible to conceive of it. This is not, however, the meaning of terms as usually employed. They refer to this endless motion, and the conditions of logical thought necessitate this universal paradox. The truth is we are forced by the laws of cognition to postulate an unknown reality behind the known reality, both of matter and mind, a dark side of the material world and of intelligence, and imperceptible substantive being, out of which somehow comes the perceptible, and into which it disappears, a source of both material and mental phenomena, a cause of their effects, a permanent in which alone change is possible, a possibility for all actualities and a power which transcends knowledge but which is presupposed in all knowledge. This is the meaning of the paradox. The lines of argument as to the question of personal immortality thus converge. Whether we look without or within the mind, we come to substantially the same result. If conscious mind be a higher force superinduced upon the vital energies, then we must believe in conscious existence after death. If force be persistent, if energy be conserved, if motion is continuous, if matter is indestructible, then the conscious ego is indestructible, the mental processes are continuous, the power of apperception is conserved and persistent. On the other hand, if we look introspectively, we find it impossible to think even of an interruption of consc ousness, while all the considerations derived from an observation of external nature have increase strength when we consider the trains of states of consciousness as mental objects. The conscious ego persists--that is the self-conscious ego--the knowing, feeling, willing ego, for we know no other. That is what mind means. It is not harder to understand the continued existence of personal existence after death than to comprehend its occultation in sleep and restoration afterward. As before said, the sleeper knows, subjectively, no interruption ; he infers it from changes in his environment. Its occurrence, however, is quite inexplicable ; yet no one speaks of any impairment of personal identity because of it. The greatest perplexity arises, perhaps, over the fact of the failure of memory. Without memory there is no personal consciousness, and we often observe a progressive impairment of the representative power. Memory [*62*] waxes and wanes according to bodily conditions. If, then, alterations of the nerve-structure in disease will abrogate memory, the total disintegration of that structure, it may be said, will remove the possibility of representation --at any rate until some re-integration takes place. If, while life continues mind may fail, how much more when life is extinguished must we be compelled to the belief that the individual consciousness has irrecoverably passed away. But, after all, this deterioration of memory is only concomitant with degeneration of vitality. Vital force wanes and, perhaps, there may be by-and-by just this reintegration of which we spoke. Vital force, though it has disappeared, exists somewhere. There may be a lacuna in conscious existence as in sleep ; but do not the considerations before adduced impel us to the belief that there may be an awakening even after death to the conscious identity which says I am I, I was and I am? On every side, from beginning to end, this subject is beset with difficulties; but altogether I am inclined to the opinion that the ground for the assertion of post-mortem personal self-consciousness in identity with ante-mortem self-consciousness is firmer than for the contrary belief. But one thing more ought to be said before we close. The same arguments that support the belief in continued personal existence after death tend also to prove an existence before birth. Is it possible that we must return to the pre-existence doctrines of the ancient philosophers? Is it possible that we must each say, I am; therefore I always was and always shall be? Dios sabe ! Is it wonderful, in view of all these things, that mankind clings to the belief that the inquiry raised by intelligence must be answerable to intelligence, that some conscious being somewhere, at some time or somehow must understand these mysteries; or that they voice the song of Omar Khayyam-- " We are no other than a moving row Of magic shadow shapes that come and go Round with the sun-illuminated lantern held In midnight by the master of the show. But helpless pieces of the game he plays Upon this chequer board of nights and days; Hither and thither moves, and checks, and slays, And one by one back in the closet lays. The ball no question makes of ayes and noes, But here or there as strikes the player goes; And he that toss'd you down into the field He knows about it all--he knows--HE knows!"] JAILS AND JUBILEES. BY ELIZABETH CADY STANTON. The two questions just now agitating Great Britain are "Coercion" for Ireland, and the Queen's Jubilee-- a tragedy and a comedy in the same hour. The former is being hotly discussed in Parliament and by thoughtful people at every fireside. As the 176 THE OPEN COURT. English are by no means of one opinion on this question, the excitement and bitterness among contending factions, in public and private, remind one of the old days of slavery in the United States, when families, as well as churches and political parties, were rent in twain by the agitation. There has been so much said and written in regard to the condition of Ireland, that your readers need no recapitulation of the successive steps of tyrannical legislation, by which, through four centuries, England has at last completely subjugated a nation that was at one time the light of European civilization. Down to the sixteenth century, Ireland, in her system of education and jurisprudence, was pre-eminently the great center of progress and learning. To her free schools and universities students flocked from every part of Christendom, and Irish teachers and professors spread throughout the known world. " The body of her laws," says one of her historians, " revised and codified, is now, by order of the British government, being translated and published as a rare and valuable treasury of ancient jurisprudence, Parliament making an annual grant for that purpose since 1852." But alas ! her glory had departed. All the solemn treaties made by England, when Ireland consented to a union, have one after another been violated ; her manufactories, by direct legislation, have bee ruthlessly destroyed ; the education of her children made a penal offense ; her lands confiscated ; her troops disbanded, and hated rulers set over her--Governors, Chief Secretaries, Constabulary, Police--all appointed by the English government, with a standing army of 25,000 soldiers to enforce obedience to these officers, all of which the Irish people are taxed to support. Thus, by degrees, has England made Ireland what she is to-day, a helpless, beggared, dependency. Though too crippled in her resources to make open war, her national cry is still the same as it ever has been, and ever will be : " Give us liberty or death." Death she has had in many forms but for centuries not one taste of liberty. The discontent of this oppressed people has been voiced from time to time, by Grattan, Curran, Emmet, Burke, O'Connell--all far-seeing statesmen and gifted orators--but what avail unanswerable arguments based on the eternal principles of justice, wit, wisdom, eloquence, when weighed in the balance with the greed, selfishness and tyranny of the English government. And now a Tory ministry proposed to give the last turn of the screw in a Coercion Act, that, if passed during this session of Parliament, will reduce the Irish nation to hopeless slavery. This bill, depriving the people of trial by jury ; of the freedom of the press and of speech ; of the right to hold public meetings--in fact, making football of all their civil and political liberties, is a disgrace to the age in which we live, and should be publicly and officially denounced by every civilized nation. Americans on this side the water are proud to learn that public meetings, with Governors of the several States in the chair, are being held in our country to protest against any further outrages on this long suffering people. While England boasts of being a Christian and civilized nation, in all her dealings with foreign countries she has proved herself the most brutal government on the face of the earth. She has ever been quick to point the slow, unwavering finger of scorn at oppressions in other lands,--let all nations now make a united effort to open her eyes to her own slavery in Ireland. She is to-day subsidizing the wealth of the world, as far as she can to support her army, navy and established church; her royal family, nobility and petty county grades of aristocracy ; her system of land tenure, tithes, taxes and corrupt social customs ; her increasing pauperism and crime, grinding the last farthing from her subjects everywhere to maintain a show of state at home. In this supreme moment of the nation's political crisis the Queen and her suite are junketing round in their royal yachts on the coast of France, while proposing to celebrate her year of Jubilee by levying new taxes on her people, in the form of penny and pound contributions to build a monument to Prince Albert, who never uttered one lofty sentiment or performed one deed of heroism, if fairly represented on the page of history. The year of Jubilee ! while under the eyes of the Queen her Irish subjects are being evicted from their holdings at the point of bayonet; their cottages burned to the ground; aged and helpless men and women and newborn children, alike left crouching on the highways, under bridges, hayricks and hedges, crowded into poor-houses, jails and prisons, to expiate the crimes growing out of poverty on the one hand, and patriotism on the other. While the Queen has laid up for herself and her innumerable progeny ten millions of pounds during the last fifty years, the condition of the laboring classes in Great Britain has been growing steadily worse; for what then should the gratitude of the people take an enduring form of expression in a Parian marble monument to her consort? A far more fitting way to celebrate the year of Jubilee would be for the Queen to scatter the millions hoarded in her private vaults among her needy subjects, to mitigate, in some measure, the miseries they have endured from generation to generation ; to inaugurate some grand improvement in her system of education ; to extend still further the civil and political rights of her people ; to suggest, perchance, an Inviolable Homestead Bill for Ireland, and to open the prison doors to her noble priests and patriots. But instead of such worthy ambitions, in the fiftieth year of her reign, what does the Queen propose ? THE OPEN COURT. 177 With her knowledge and consent, committees of ladies are formed in every county, town and village in all the colonies under her flag, to solicit these penny and pound contributions, to be placed at her disposal. Ladies go from house to house, not only to the residences of the rich, but the cottages of the poor, through all the marts of trade, the fields, the factories, begging pennies for the Queen from servants and day-laborers. One called at the door of an American lady a few days since, and asked of the maid who opened the door, to see the servants. After wheedling them out of a few pence, she asked for the mistress, hoping to obtain from her a pound at least, but she being an American and a republican declined giving a donation, on the ground that the Queen having amassed a vast fortune of ten millions of pounds, was abundantly able to erect a monument to Prince Albert herself. She thought it would be more suitable if the Queen gave a Jubilee offering to her people rather than they to her. " But," urged the lady beggar, "it will rouse good feeling among the people to take some part in this commemoration." " Why should there be good feeling?" said the American. " For fifty years the poor of England have been taxed heavily to support Her Majesty and to make marriage settlements on all her children, and while she has been growing richer and richer they have been steadily growing poorer and poorer." The ladies who started this woman's fund intended it should all come back to the people in the form of charity. Great regret was felt by them when they learned that Her Majesty intended to erect a monument. The complaints became so loud that at the Queen's commands the ladies were informed by Mr. Ponsonby that only [sterling pound symbol] 1,500 would be expended in that way and the remainder would be devoted to charity. It is evident royalty is looking for a most generous outpouring by the people. To show how little idea the people have as to the sentiment and aesthetic taste involved in this proposed work of art, one poor woman when asked to give a penny to the fund, said " here, Miss, take two, sure I've known what it is to want myself sometimes." Another needy widow said, " Oh, yes, I can spare a penny for the Queen. A widdy with a large family must have a great struggle to make the ends meet." Many such stories are repeated with peals of laughter. But who that has a soul to feel could receive money from the hard hand of poverty, and under such false pretenses. Instead of making merry over such misplaced generosity, public indignation should be roused against those who receive it. To be sure the queen has had a long reign, but what great national work or what new liberty for her people has ever emanated from her brain ? Her influence, as far as she has had any, has been against all change and improvement. If the crowned heads of Europe were 63 to make a present to the Queen and build two monuments, both to her and her consort, it would be highly suitable. For one of their number to stick to a throne for fifty years in this revolutionary period is indeed remarkable. But as her name has never been connected with any progressive movement, why ask gifts from the people? Through the troubled times of the great unemployed, and the prolonged Irish struggle, the country has only heard of her in connection with one democratic demonstration. She attended a private representation of that popular Parisian circus, in London, and it was recorded in all the papers that Her Majesty was delighted with the exhibition and honored the baby elephant by caressing his left ear. The idea of a penny from the masses is a nice point in English calculations. When they established their system of free schools they passed a cunning little by-law, requiring each child to come with a penny in its hand, ofttimes with its little stomach so empty that the brain could not work. Think of the self-control the child must have exercised in passing a bake-shop with a penny in its hand ! A humane teacher told me she was obliged to take the penny, but she usually gave the children that needed it a roll of bread, which she purchased for that purpose on her way to school. To rescind this by-law and establish a bread fund for hungry children in the schools would be a good use to make of the Jubilee pennies filched from the poor, but to build a monument on such a basis is enough to make Prince Albert turn in his grave. London, April. 178 THE OPEN COURT. ceremonial round, had paused before an altar and begun the instrumentation for a sacred dance. I moved away to an aperture in the wall and saw the nautch girls just beginning to dance before a grim but gaudy god throned in his sedan beneath a cobra canopy. Near by stood a white-robed and turbaned cockney with his little cohort of Salvationists. " In the name of Almighty God stop that idolatry and blasphemy, or the plagues of -----" A sharp official voice reprimanding, cut short the sentence of the Salvationist, who was pale and trembling. " Sing, sisters!" he cried. In a moment the tinklings of the sacred triangles were drowned by a dozen shrill voices wailing of the "Sweet By-and-By." In an instant two powerful Hindus darted forward, seized the foolhardy Salvationist and rolled hi in the wet blood of sacrified kids. The English women shrieked, the Hindus yelled, and a fight began which might have ended seriously had not the police appeared and marched the Salvationist off, followed by the two Brahmans who had assailed him. When I turned back into the court of the temple I saw a hundred monkeys seated quietly along the parapet overlooking the street and gazing with silent interest on the crowd beneath. When the human companies which came into collision had departed the monkeys slowly distributed themselves, and my friendly chimpanzee descended. "Those poor Christians and Brahmans did not understand each other," he remarked. "If they had understood each other they would have embraced instead of fighting. There was no real difference between the god in the sedan and the god in whose name the Chris- "In a sense, no doubt. I hurl this round cake against that wall--thus ! You observe those doves picking up the crumbs. Each crumb has just had a beginning. The sun once hurled into space a cosmical cake which has broken up into worlds. Perhaps the sun itself was a crumb of a previous cake, perhaps not. There is no absolute beginning in these changes." " Then you would find the beginning in the appearance of life on our planet." " 'In the beginning was the word,' as the pious parrot said. Without language was not anything made that was made. The living germ was not made." " Some of our scientists say life was evolved out of matter; that the inorganic evolved the organic." " I recognize the idea as a phase of thought through which our anthropoid race passed. In recoil from a primitive and fictitious system which assumed millions of causes for phenomena only superficially different, we went to the other extreme and confused antagonistic phenomena in a unity so unnatural that it had to be made supernatural. Why should not life be an original mode of one thing as well as lifelessness that of another? Why--except by some theological or metaphysical assumption --should we say that organic and inorganic are not equally eternal, in their several essence, and equally without beginning?" "It has been said the phenomenal universe implies a cause, because every effect implies a cause." "But it is an assumption that the universe is an effect. It exists. No man has ever shown that it had any beginning --neither its inorganic atoms or its organic germs. There is live stuff and lifeless stuff. The lifeless stuff runs through certain changes, chemic, molecular and other; the living stuff through certain other changes, growth, decay ; the two are found combined and mutually modified in many forms. This it always was, so far as anybody has shown." " And always will be?" " That does not follow. It were mere speculation to nquire. The thing in which I suppose you to be interested is the beginning and process of creation--that is he various development of life-stuff in this world." " IT is just that I wish to know." " Well, I can only tell you about the particular road I have traveled. It is not necessary to suppose that all forms have traveled by one route. As it is not necessary to suppose that granite was evolved from flint, flint from water, water from salt, neither is it necessary to suppose that whales, crabs, butterflies, tigers, have been evolved from each other." " Such variety is not admitted by Western science." " Perhaps because an ancient deism survives in it as a suffocating unity. What reason is there to believe that our cherries were once plums, or the reverse? Amid he innumerable myriads of atoms and germs floating Transcribed and reviewed by volunteers participating in the By The People project at crowd.loc.gov.