THE UTILITARIAN.*

We were walking together in a broad, unfrequented street of Philadelphia. All at once we heard a strange uproar a great way off, growing louder every moment; and before we could imagine the cause, a boy at the head of the street cried out, "Here they come! here they come!" The people rushed out of their houses, another and another took up the cry, and it flew by us like the signal of a telegraph. And then all was still as death, frightfully still, and the next moment a pair of large powerful horses came plunging round the corner at full speed, with the fragments of a carriage rattling and ringing after them. "The child! the child! oh! my God, the poor child!" shrieked a woman at a window near me; and on looking that way, I saw a child in the street, holding out its arms to a female who was flying toward it, her eyes dilated with horror, her garments flying loose, and her cry such as I never heard issue from mortal lips. I sprang forward to save the child— the little creature was right in the way of the horses-and I should have succeeded, but for a strong hand that arrested me and pulled me back by main force, at the very instant the carriage bounded by in a whirlwind of dust, overthrowing mother and child in its career. "The woman! the woman!" shrieked the people far and wide; save her, save her!" At this new cry, the man who had held me back with the hand of a giant, flung me away from his grasp, and, pursuing the furious animals round the next corner where they had been partially stopped by a waggon, and stood leaping and plunging in their harness, and trying to disengage themselves from what I now perceived to be a human being, a female who had been caught by her clothes in the whirling mass, leaped upon them with the activity and strength of one who might grapple with Centaurs in such a cause; and, before I could get near enough to help him, plucked one of the hot and furious animals to the earth, first upon his knees, and then upon his side in such a manner as to deprive the other of all power. The next moment I was at his side, leaving the poor child I had snatched up to be taken care of by a stranger, and lifting the mother of the child from the midst of danger so appalling that, but for the example set me by my companion, I never should have had the courage to interfere even to save what now appeared to be one of the loveliest women I had ever seen. The multitude were aghast with fear, but as for the extraordinary man who had thrown himself head foremost upon what was re

From the American Token for 1830.

garded, by every body there, as no better than certain death, he got up after I had liberated the woman, brushed off the dust from his clothes, and would have walked away, as if nothing had happened, I do believe, had I not begged him to go with me where he might see after the child, and examine its hurts.

The child was very much hurt, and the mother delirious, though in every other respect unharmed. A wheel had passed over the little creature's body in such a way as to leave me no hope of its recovery, though I instantly bled it myself, and determined to watch by it to the last; and the mother had escaped as by a miracle, with but two or three slight lacerations, though it had appeared, upon fuller inquiry, that she had run directly before the horses with a view to turn them aside, there being no other hope, and that she had been caught by the projecting shaft and lifted along at the risk, every moment, as she clung by the bridle, of being trampled to death. But she escaped and recovered; and the poor child, who was just beginning to speak plain, was now the sole object of solicitude with me.

A word now of the character and behaviour of the stranger, before I proceed further with my little story. I had met him about a month before in a dissecting room, where, in the absence of the lecturer, a question arose about the structure and purpose of a part of the eye. The class were all talking together; and for myself, though I paid great attention to the subject, I confess that I was never so bewildered in my life. In the midst of the uproar, a tall, bony, hard-visaged man, with a stoop in his shoulders, and the largest hand I ever saw, whipped out a small penknife, and taking up the eye of a fish that lay near, proceeded to demonstrate with astonishing clearness and beauty of language. After he had got through his demonstration, we inquired of each other, who he was, and where he had come from. But all we could hear amounted to nothing. He had been at Philadelphia about six months. He had travelled much, read much, and thought more: he was learned in a way peculiarly his own; he was indefatigable, he had given his body by will to be dissected after death, and he was a Utilitarian. But what a Utilitarian meant nobody knew. Some believed it to be a new religious faith; whose followers bore that name; others that it meant a sort of free-masonry or infidelity. But he, when he was asked, told them it was nothing but Jeremy Benthamism. But who was Jeremy Bentham? Nobody knew, at least nobody knew with any degree of certainty.

"Why did you stop me," said I to him, as we sat together by an open window, looking out upon the Jersey shore; the little boy on a bed near us, breathing, though awake, as children breathe when

they are asleep, and the mother-it made me a better man to look at this woman, so meek, so fair, with such a calm, beautiful propriety in whatever she did; so sincere withal, and so affectionate with her boy. "Why did you stop me," said I, looking at her as she sat with her large hazel eyes fixed upon the little sufferer. N. B. she was a widow. 66 Why did you stop me, I say?" addressing myself to Abijah Ware. "Because," quoth Abijah, in a deep, low, monotonous whine, "because I am a Utilitarian.”—“ A what?"—A U-til-i-ta-ri-an," repeated Abijah. The woman stared, and I asked what he meant. “ "I mean," said Abijah, "a follower of the principle of utility; I look to the greatest good of the greatest number."-" I am all in the dark," said I; "please to explain. What had utility, or the greatest good of the greatest number, to do with your stopping me, when but for you, I might have rescued the child."-" Perhaps and you might have thrown away another life to no purpose."-" Well, and so might you, when you risked yours.""Fiddle-faddle-one case at a time. How old are you?" "How old am I?"-" Yes-out with it."-I made no reply. "About five-and-twenty, I suppose, are you?"-" Well, what if I am? What has that to do with my saving or not saving the child?"-" Much. I am a Utilitarian, I say. You are grown up; your life is worth more to society than forty such lives."-" How so!" "It has cost some thousands to raise you." I looked up. The man was perfectly serious. He had a pencil in his hand, a bit of paper on the table, and was cyphering away at full speed. "Yes, Sir," continued he, "the risk was out of all proportion to the probable advantage or profit; and therefore I stopped you." God forgive the Utilitarians, thought I, if they are capable of such things before they put forth a hand to save a fellow-creature-a babe in the path of wild horses. For my part, I should as soon think of stopping to do the case in double fellowship, as to calculate the proportion of the risk to the hope of profit here. He understood me, I dare say; for he shifted his endless legs one over the other, drew a long breath, and quietly laughed in my face." You acted like a boy," said he. "The chance-I know how to calculate such chances to a single hair-was fifty to one against your saving the child."-" Well, Sir-"-" And fifty to one, perhaps more, against your saving yourself; and so I concluded to save you, in spite of your teeth." Here a low, hysterical sobbing was heard from the pillow, where the mother lay with her head resting by that of her child, and her mouth pressed to his cheek. But my imperturbable companion proceeded—“ The truth is, my dear Sir, that you never were made for a hero; you are not strong enough, nor, I might say," leaning forward to peep either into the widow's eyes

or into a dressing glass, that stood near, "nor ugly enough. Had you not kept me employed in holding you, I might have saved the child-poor boy, and I should."-"But your life is far more valuable than mine," said I, with a flourish, expecting of course to be contradicted." True. But I am unfashionably put together, I am older than you, and my name is Abijah." This was said with invincible gravity, though followed by another glance at the beautiful widow." And what is more, the risk would have been little or nothing for me; to you it would have been a matter of life and death. I am what may be called a strong man."-" A hero, therefore," said I, referring to his remark of a moment before." I might have been a hero, perhaps, for my brother Ezra and I were twins, and he is decidedly a hero." I could not help saying, “Do you resemble each other?"-" Very much, though Ezra is the handsomer of the two. By-the-bye, I must tell you a little anecdote of brother Ezra. One day, as he turned a corner in Baltimore, a man met him, who made a full stop in the highway, threw up his hands with affected amazement at the ungainly creature before him-brother Ezra, by-the-bye, is not the handsomest man that ever was and cried out, 'Well, by George! if you ar'nt the ugliest feller ever I clapped eyes on!' At which our Ezra, instead of knocking him head over heels, as anybody but a hero, with such strength, would have done, merely said to him, 'I guess you never saw brother 'Bijah?" " I laughed heartily at the story; and yet more heartily at the look of brother 'Bijah as he told it. And as for the widow, she appeared for a single moment to forget her boy, in her anxiety to avoid laughing with me.-" But you risked your life, Sir," said I, "in a case ten thousand times more dangerous, the very next moment after you had interfered to stop me."True, but it was to save the life of a woman."-" Well, but why a woman, if you would not suffer me to save a child ?"" Because I am a Utilitarian.”—“Well, what does that prove?"-" You shall Suppose the perfection of the species to depend upon a certain union of physical and intellectual properties which may be represented by r."—"Nonsense; what have we to do with algebra here?" "By x, I say, or, if you prefer arithmetic, by the number 100. Now youth may go for so much "—making a mark on the paper before him; "health for so much," making another; "beauty for -let me see, widow, I begin to have some hope for your child." The woman started upon her feet, and stood with her eyes lighted up, her cheek flushed, hands locked and lifted, waiting for him to finish; but he only looked at her, and proceeded with the calculation. Beauty for so much, maturity for so much; and value, wisdom, courage, virtue-widow you may sit down-for all the rest

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see.

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say 85. Now when I see such a being, whether male or female, though sex may be put down for something here, about to lose herself, or himself, about to throw herself, or himself away, I instantly substract the sum at which I have estimated myself, that is, between sixty-three and sixty-four, as you may see by this paper," handing me his pocket-book, where the calculation stood on the first page, "from the sum of one hundred, or less, according to the value of the object, and if I am satisfied that the risk is a fair one, the probabilities not more than enough to outweigh the certain profit of saving a life so much more valuable than my own, I save it."" I understand nothing of your theory," said I, "and as little of your calculation. But this I do understand, this I know, that you have encountered a risk for the safety of that woman there, which I never saw, never hope to see, voluntarily encountered by any human being for the safety of another."-" That will depend upon the progress of our faith. If Utilitarians multiply, such things will be common." I was just going to cry, Pho! but I forbore. "And

now," said he, getting up and going to the child, which had just waked from a sweet sleep, and feeling its pulse, "I think I may say to you now, widow Roberts-I think, I say-but I would not have you too sure-I think your child is safe." The woman caught his huge hand up to her mouth before he could prevent it, and fell upon her knees, and wept and sobbed as if her heart would break; and the child, putting out both its little fat hands, kept patting her on the head, and saying, "Poor mutter ky; George moss well now, dont ky, mutter." My hero withdrew his hand, I thought with considerable emotion, kissed the child, made a sweep at me, in the form of a bow, and walked straightway out of the room, without opening his mouth. He was no sooner off than the nurse entered, and we examined the child. There was, to be sure, a surprising alteration for the better. He breathed freely, the stupor had pass

ed off, and his eyes were as clear as crystal.

Let me pass over the following four weeks, at the end of which period I thought proper to hold counsel with my friend, the Utilitarian, about the safety and propriety of marrying a widow. "You merely suppose the case, for argument's sake?" said he "To be sure," said I.—"What if you suppose a child or so into the bargain?" said he." Why, as to that," said I, with somewhat of a sheepish look, "I fear, as to that now, I should not care much if "-"A boy?" said he, interrupting me." I wish the brat was out of the way," said I, with a fling. "No you don't," said he. "It would be a dead loss to you." I pretended to be in a huff. "Come, come, Joseph, let us cut the matter short. Away with your pros and cons, your theories, and your supposable cases. You