But it is not of heat alone that this statement is true. The same thing holds with regard to other forms of energy, even the very simplest forms of visible kinetic energy for instance. A pillow or bolster (stuffed with eider-down, let us say) of 30 lbs. weight, and moving at 10 feet per second—_i.e._ as if it had fallen from a height of considerably _less than two feet_,—has nearly the same energy as a pellet of No. 1 shot when it leaves the muzzle of a fowling-piece. How different the quality of these equal quantities even of energy of the same kind! For, delivered horizontally, the one would correspond to a staggering push which few men could resist if it came unexpectedly; while the other would scarcely affect one’s equilibrium, though it might easily kill by penetrating a vital organ. [In the brutal pastimes of the last generation, as we now in our advanced humanitarianism call them, this was well known as the difference between the effects of a slow knock-down blow by a heavy-weight, and a ‘punishing facer’ from a feather-weight. Alas for the good old times! for our comparison, apt as it is, is too probably thrown away on the degenerate inhabitants of (once) merry England, erewhile the home of the ‘Miller,’ with his honest quarterstaff, of jolly and chivalrous wrestlers, boxers, and bowmen, now the hell of running-kicks, garrotting, gouging,[45] and stabbing. Aetas parentum, pejor avis, tulit nos nequiores, mox daturos progeniem vitiosiorem. The dissipation of energy is a great fact in a moral as well as in a physical sense. In those good old times _men_ fought with _men_,—irrepressible energy, rather than any sordid passion or uncontrolled vice, constantly pulling the trigger! _Now_ creatures in the likeness of men vent their despicable passions in murderous assaults upon women and children. But science hints at an effectual cure. It is probable that before many years have passed, electricity, which by some mysterious means enables our nerves to call our muscles into play, will be called upon by an enlightened legislature to solve this desperate social problem. Imprisonment has been tried in vain, and, besides, it involves great and needless expense. The ‘cat,’ though thoroughly appropriate, is objected to as tending to brutalise (!) the patient, and render murder not unlikely. No such objections can be urged against the use of electricity in any of its many forms. For it can easily be applied so as to produce for the requisite time, _and for that only_, and under the direction of skilled physicists and physiologists, absolutely indescribable torture (unaccompanied by wound or even bruise), thrilling through every fibre of the frame of such miscreants.]