The long experience of internal peace since the War
of the Roses had not been without its effect; and while the Tudor and
Stuart periods had atrocities enough, we need only remember what was
going on at the same time in France and Germany in order to realize how
much worse it might have been. In England, as elsewhere, however, it
was, when looked at with our eyes, a rough and brutal time. It was a day
of dungeons, whipping-posts, and thumbscrews, when slight offenders were
maimed and bruised and great offenders cut into pieces by sentence of
court. The pioneers of New England had grown up familiar with such
things; and among the townspeople of Boston and Hartford in 1675 were
still many who in youth had listened to the awful news from Magdeburg or
turned pale over the horrors in Piedmont upon which Milton invoked the
wrath of Heaven. [Sidenote: Growth of humane sentiment in recent times]
When civilized men are removed from the safeguards of civilization and
placed in the wilderness amid the hideous dangers that beset human
existence in a savage state of society, whatever barbarism lies latent
in them is likely to find many opportunities for showing itself.
The feelings that stir the meekest of men, as he stands among the
smouldering embers of his homestead and gazes upon the mangled bodies
of wife and children, are feelings that he shares with the most
bloodthirsty savage, and the primary effect of his higher intelligence
and greater sensitiveness is only to increase their bitterness.
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