I here challenge any person in his five wits to tell me what that woman
was sent to prison for. Either it was for being poor, or it was for being
ill. Nobody could suggest, nobody will suggest, nobody, as a matter of
fact, did suggest, that she had committed any other crime. The doctor was
called in by a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. Was
this woman guilty of cruelty to children? Not in the least. Did the
doctor say she was guilty of cruelty to children? Not in the least. Was
these any evidence even remotely bearing on the sin of cruelty? Not a rap.
The worse that the doctor could work himself up to saying was that
though the children were "exceedingly" well, the conditions would be
serious in case of illness. If the doctor will tell me any conditions
that would be comic in case of illness, I shall attach more weight to his
argument.

Now this is the worst effect of modern worry. The mad doctor has gone mad.
He is literally and practically mad; and still he is quite literally and
practically a doctor. The only question is the old one, Quis docebit
ipsum doctorem? Now cruelty to children is an utterly unnatural thing;
instinctively accursed of earth and heaven. But neglect of children is a
natural thing; like neglect of any other duty, it is a mere difference of
degree that divides extending arms and legs in calisthenics and extending
them on the rack. It is a mere difference of degree that separates any
operation from any torture. The thumb-screw can easily be called Manicure.
Being pulled about by wild horses can easily be called Massage. The
modern problem is not so much what people will endure as what they will
not endure. But I fear I interrupt.... The boiling oil is boiling; and
the Tenth Mandarin is already reciting the "Seventeen Serious Principles
and the Fifty-three Virtues of the Sacred Emperor."