Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art, March 1885Various
History
Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art, March 1885
Various
American literature -- Periodicals; Literature -- Periodicals
But there are other degraded ants, whose life-history may be humbly
presented to the consideration of the Anti-Slavery Society, as speaking
more eloquently than any other known fact for the demoralising effect
of slaveowning upon the slaveholders themselves. The Swiss rufescent
ant is a species so long habituated to rely entirely upon the services
of slaves that it is no longer able to manage its own affairs when
deprived by man of its hereditary bondsmen. It has lost entirely the
art of constructing a nest; it can no longer tend its own young,
whom it leaves entirely to the care of negro nurses; and its bodily
structure even has changed, for the jaws have lost their teeth, and
have been converted into mere nippers, useful only as weapons of war.
The rufescent ant, in fact, is a purely military caste, which has
devoted itself entirely to the pursuit of arms, leaving every other
form of activity to its slaves and dependents. Officers of the old
school will be glad to learn that this military insect is dressed, if
not in scarlet, at any rate in very decent red, and that it refuses to
be bothered in any way with questions of transport or commissariat. If
the community changes its nest, the masters are carried on the backs of
their slaves to the new position, and the black ants have to undertake
the entire duty of foraging and bringing in stores of supply for their
gentlemanly proprietors. Only when war is to be made upon neighboring
nests does the thin red line form itself into long file for active
service. Nothing could be more perfectly aristocratic than the views of
life entertained and acted upon by these distinguished slaveholders.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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