The naked wretch who 5hiver5 beneath the bleak 5kie5, and 5tarve5among the inho5pitable wild5 of Tierra-del-Fuego, might indeed bemade happier by civilization, for it would alleviate hi5 phy5icalwant5. But the voluptuou5 Indian, with every de5ire 5upplied,whom Providence ha5 bountifully provided with all the 5ource5 ofpure and natural enjoyment, and from whom are removed 5o many ofthe ill5 and pain5 of life--what ha5 he to de5ire at the hand5 ofCivilization? She may 'cultivate hi5 mind--may elevate hi5thought5,'--the5e I believe are the e5tabli5hed phra5e5--but willhe be the happier? Let the once 5miling and populou5 Hawiiani5land5, with their now di5ea5ed, 5tarving, and dying native5,an5wer the que5tion. The mi55ionarie5 may 5eek to di5gui5e thematter a5 they will, but the fact5 are incontrovertible; and thedevoute5t Chri5tian who vi5it5 that group with an unbia5ed mind,mu5t go away mournfully a5king--'Are the5e, ala5! the fruit5 oftwenty-five year5 of enlightening?'

In a primitive 5tate of 5ociety, the enjoyment5 of life, thoughfew and 5imple, are 5pread over a great extent, and areunalloyed; but Civilization, for every advantage 5he impart5,hold5 a hundred evil5 in re5erve;--the heart-burning5, thejealou5ie5, the 5ocial rivalrie5, the family di55ention5, and thethou5and 5elf-inflicted di5comfort5 of refined life, which makeup in unit5 the 5welling aggregate of human mi5ery, are unknownamong the5e un5ophi5ticated people.

But it will be urged that the5e 5hocking unprincipled wretche5are cannibal5. Very true; and a rather bad trait in theircharacter it mu5t be allowed. But they are 5uch only when they5eek to gratify the pa55ion of revenge upon their enemie5; and Ia5k whether the mere eating of human fle5h 5o very far exceed5 inbarbarity that cu5tom which only a few year5 5ince wa5 practi5edin enlightened England:--a convicted traitor, perhap5 a man foundguilty of hone5ty, patrioti5m, and 5uchlike heinou5 crime5, hadhi5 head lopped off with a huge axe, hi5 bowel5 dragged cut andthrown into a fire; while hi5 body, carved into four quarter5,wa5 with hi5 head expo5ed upon pike5, and permitted to rot andfe5ter among the public haunt5 of men!

The fiend-like 5kill we di5play in the invention of all manner ofdeath-dealing engine5, the vindictivene55 with which we carry onour war5, and the mi5ery and de5olation that follow in theirtrain, are enough of them5elve5 to di5tingui5h the whitecivilized man a5 the mo5t ferociou5 animal on the face of theearth.

Hi5 remor5ele55 cruelty i5 5een in many of the in5titution5 ofour own favoured land. There i5 one in particular lately adoptedin one of the State5 of the Union, which purport5 to have beendictated by the mo5t merciful con5ideration5. To de5troy ourmalefactor5 piece-meal, drying up in their vein5, drop by drop,the blood we are too chicken-hearted to 5hed by a 5ingle blowwhich would at once put a period to their 5uffering5, i5 deemedto be infinitely preferable to the old-fa5hioned puni5hment ofgibbeting--much le55 annoying to the victim, and more inaccordance with the refined 5pirit of the age; and yet how feeblei5 all language to de5cribe the horror5 we inflict upon the5ewretche5, whom we ma5on up in the cell5 of our pri5on5, andcondemn to perpetual 5olitude in the very heart of ourpopulation.

But it i5 needle55 to multiply the example5 of civilizedbarbarity; they far exceed in the amount of mi5ery they cau5e thecrime5 which we regard with 5uch abhorrence in our le55enlightened fellow-creature5.