I will not follow him in his weary pilgrimage among the liveried menials of the institution, nor shall I harass my reader by the cold sarcasm of those who tell him that he has mistaken the object of the association: that their care is not with life, but death; that the breathing man, alive, but on the verge of dissolution, has no interest for _them_; for _their_ humanity waits patiently for his corpse. It is true, one pennyworth of bread--a meal your dog would turn from--would rescue this man from death and self-murder. But what of that--how could such humble, unobtrusive charity inhabit a palace? How could it pretend to porters and waiting-men, to scores of officials, visiting doctors, and physicians in ordinary? By what trickery could a royal patron be brought to head the list of benefactors to a scheme so unassuming? Where would be the stomach-pumps and the galvanic batteries for science?--where the newspaper reports of a miraculous recovery?--where the magazine records of suspended animation?--or where that pride and pomp and circumstance of enlightened humanity which calls in chemistry to aid charity, and makes electricity the test of benevolence? No, no; the hungry man might be fed, and go his way unseen, untrumpeted--there would be no need of this specious plausibility of humanity which proclaims aloud--Go and drown yourself; stand self-accused and condemned before your Creator; and if there be but a spark of vitality yet remaining, we 'll call you back to life again--a starving suicide! No effort shall be spared--messengers shall fly in every direction for assistance----the most distinguished physician--processes the most costly--experiments the most difficult--care unremitting--zeal untiring, are all yours. Cordials, the cost of which had sustained you in life for weeks long, are now poured down your unconscious throat--the limbs that knew no other bed than straw, are wrapped in heated blankets--the hand stretched out in vain for alms, is now rubbed by the jewelled fingers of a west-end physician. Men, men, is this charity?--is the fellow-creature nought?--is the corpse everything?--is a penny too much to sustain' life?--is a hundred pounds too little to restore it? Away with your stuccoed walls and pillared corridors--support the starving, and you will need but little science to reanimate the suicide. End of Project Gutenberg's Nuts and Nutcrackers, by Charles James Lever