IV. Robbery

It is needless here to furnish proofs that this kind of aggression has been, froln very early stages of human proROBBERY. 353 gress, a concomitant of militancy. Eating the vanquished or turning them into bondsmen, commonly becanle alterna tives where inter-tribal conflicts "\vere perpetual. From the incidental making of captives there has frequently grown up the intentional making of captives. An established policy has dictated invasions to procure workers or victims. But whether with or without intention, this robbery in the highest degree has been, throughout, a concomitant of habitual war; could not, indeed, have arisen to any extent without war. A closely-allied forul of robbery-somewhat earlier, since we find it in rude tribes which do not make slaves-is the stealing of WOlnen. Of course, along with victory over com batants there has gone appropriation of the non-combatants belonging to them; and women have consequently been in II all early stages among the prizes of conquerors. In books treating of primitive marriage, like that of }Ir. McLennan, there will be found evidence that the stealing .of won1en not unfrequently becomes the normal process by which the nunlbers of a tribe are maintained. It is found best to avoid the cost· of rearing them, and to obtain by fighting or theft the requisite number from other tribes. Becoming a traditional policy, this custom often acquires a strong sanction; and is supposed by SOIne to have originated the interdict against lnarriage with those of the same clan.

But, however this may be, we habitually find women re garded as the most valued spoils of victory; and often, where the men are killed, the women are preserved to become mothers. It was so with the Caribs in their can nibal days; and it was so with the Hebrews, as shown in NU1nbers xxxi, 17-18, where we read that, after a SllC cessful war, all the wives and the males among the children were ordered by }lIosesto be killed, while the virgins were re served for the use of the captors. (See also DeuteronomJyxxi.) N ow the truth here to be observed is that in societies which· have not risen to high st~ges, the ethical sentiment, or rather the pro-ethical sentiment, makes no protest 354 THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS. against robberies of these kind; but, contrariwise, gives countenance to them. The cruel treatment of prisoners delineated in Egyptian and Assyrian wall-paintings and wall-sculptures, implies, what the records tell, that there was a social sanction for their subsequent bondage. Simi larly, we do not see in the literature of the Greeks, any more than in the literature of the Hebrews, that the holding of men in slavery called forth moral reprobation. It was the same with the capture of women and the making wives of then1, or more frequently concubines: this was creditable rather ·than discredita.ble. With the social sanction for the stealing. of women by the early Aryans, as narrated in the Mahabharata, there ·was also a divine sanction; and it is manifest that among the Hebrews there was social if not divine sanction for the taking of the virgins of J abesh Gilead for wives, and also for the stealing of the" daughters of Shiloh." (Judge8 xxi.) Under this head it needs only to add that modern pro gress'with its prolonged discipline of internal amity, as op posed to that of external enmity, has been accompanied by disappearance of these grossest forms of robbery. The ethi cal senthnent, rightly so-called} has been developed to the extent needful for suppressing them.

§ 131. Success in war being honourable, all accompani ments and signs of such success become honourable. Hence, along with the enslaving of captives if they are not eaten, and along vvith the appropriation of their wornen as concu bines or wives, there goes the seizing of their property. A natural. sequence is that not only during war but at other tirnes, robbery of enemies, and by implication of strangers, who are ordinarily classed as enemies, is distinguished from robbery of fellow-tribesmen: the first being called good even when the last is called bad. Anlong the Comanches. "a young man is not thought worthy to be counted in the list of warriors, till he has ROBBERY. 355 returned from some successful plundering expedition, the greatest thieves are . . the most respectable members of society." A Patagonian is considered "as indifferently capa ble of supporting a wife unless he is an adept in the art of stealing from a stranger." Livingstone says of the East Africans: "In tribes which have been accustomed to cattle-stealing, the act is not considered immoral, in the 'Y~y that theft is. Before I knew the language well, I said to a chief, 'You st~le the cattle of so and so.' , No, I did not steal them,' was the reply, 'I only lifted them.' The word' gapa' is iden tical with the Highland term for the same deed."

Concerning the Kalmucks the account of Pallas is that they are addicted to theft and robbery on a large scale', but not of people of their o'wn tribe. And, Atkinson asserts the like of the Kirghis. " Thieving of this kind [stealing horses or. camels from one of the same tribe] is instantly punished among the Kirghis;' but a baranta., like the sacking of a town, is honourable plunder." Hence doubtless arises that contrast, seeming to us so strange, between the treatInent which robber-tribes, such as Bedouins, show to strangers under their roofs and the opposite treatment they show to them after they have departed. Says Atkinson :" ~Iy host [a Kirghis chief] said Koubaldos [another Kirghis chief. to whom I wa.s going] would n.ot molest us at his. aoul, but that some of. his bands would beset on our track and try to plunder us on our march." Perhaps it is among the !Turkomans that we find the IT10st marked illustrations of the way in which predatory tribes come to regard theft as honourable. By the people of Merv, raids" even alTIOllg members of the· same tribe are not, or were not until lately, looked upon in the light of robberies" ; but the raids must be on·a respectable scale.

" It iscuriousthat, whilered-handedmurderand robberywerea recognized means of existence among the'Tekkes, thieYery, inthesense of stealing from the person, or filching an article from a stall of the bazaar,. was despised." And Mr. O'Donovan subsequently relates that when urging 'on the Merv Council the cessation of maraudingexpedi tions, a ~elnber.;" with angry astonishment" asked" how 356 THE INDUOTIONS OF ETHIOS. in the name of Allah they were going to Iive if raids were not to be made"! To all vvhich evidence we may add the facts that" the Path an mother often prays that her son Inay be a successful robber," that according to Rowney the like is done by the Afridi mother, and the further fact that among the Turkomans a celebrated robber becornes a saint, and pilgrimages are made to his tOInb to sacrifice and pray. While, in most of these cases, a nlarked distinction is recognized between robbery outside the tribe and robbery within the tribe, in other cases the last as well as the first is deerned not only legitimate but praiseworthy. Dalton says of the Kukis :"'rhe accomplishment most esteemed amongst them was dexterity in thieving.': Sinlilarly, according to Gilmour" In Mongolia known thieves are treated as respectable members of soci ety. As long as they manage well and are successful, little or no odiurn seems to attach to them."

Of another Asiatic tribe we read: " They [Angamis] are expert thieves and glory in the art, for among them, as with the Spartans of old, theft is only dishonourable and obnoxious to punishment when discovered in the act of being committed." From America nlay be instanced the case of the Chinooks, by whom "cunning theft is regarded as honourable; but they despise and often punish the inexpert thief." A case in Africa is furnished by the Waganda, vvarlike and blood thirsty, among whom"The distinctions between meum and tuum are very ill-defined; and indeed all sin is only relative, the crime consisting in being detected." And then, passing to Polynesia, we find that anlong the Fijians" Success, without discovery, is deemed quite enough to make thieving virtuous, and a participation in the ill-gotten gain honourable." So that in these instances skill or courage sanctifies any invasion of property-rights.

§ 132. Evidence yielded by the historic races proves that along with a less active life of external enrnity and a 351 more active life or internal amity, there goes a change of ethical ideas and sentiments, allied to that noted in the last chapter. The Rig - Veda describes the thie,~ish acts of the gods. Vishnu" stole the cooked mess" at the libations of Indra. When Tvashtri began to perforlua sOUla-sacrificein honour OI his son who been slain .by Indra, and refused, on the ground· of his homicide, to .allow the latter to assist at the ceremony, then" Indra interrupted the celeh\5~tion, and drank off tp.e sonla by force." The moral principle thus exemplified by the gods is paralleled by the moral principle recommended for men. " Even if he were to covet the property of other people, hejs bound as a Kshatriya to take it by force of arms, and never to beg for it." But the Indian literature of later ages, displaying the r~su1ts of settled life, inculcates opposite principles.

Passing over illustrative facts furnished by other ancient historic peoples, it will suffice if we glance at the facts .\vhich medireval and modern histories furnish. Dasent tells uso£ th€\ Norsemen, that-" Robbery and piracy in a good straight .. forward wholesale way were honoured and respected. SimiJ larly with the primitive Gerlnans. Describing them, Cresar says:" Robberies which· are committed beyond the boundaries of each stata bear no infamy. • • And when any of their chiefs has said in an assembly 'that he will be their leader, let those who are willing to follow, give in their names; , they who approve of both the enterprise and the man arise and promise their assistance, and are applauded by the people; ~llch of them as have not followed him are considered deserters and traito~s, and confidence in all matters is afterwards refused them." Not to ~tteIXlpt the impossible task of tracing through some ten centuries· the relation between the perpetual. wars, large and small, public and private, and the plundering of men. by one another, wholesale and retail, it will suffice to single out special periods. Of France in the early feudal period, Ste.

Palaye says :." Our old writers denounce the avarice, greed, deceit, perjury, pillage, theft, 358 THE INDUOTIONS OF ETHIOS. and brigandage, and other f:\xcessesof an unbridled soldiery, equally devoid of principles, morals, and sentiments." During the Hundred Years War a 1'egilneof robbery became universal. Among the nobles the desire for plunder was the motive for fighting. Everywhere there ,vas brigandage on a large scale, as well as on a slnall scale. In addition to multi tudinous scattered highwaymen there were organized con1 panies of robbers who had their fortresses, lived luxuriously on the spoils of the surrounding country, kidnapped children for pages and women for concubines, and sold at high prices safe-conducts to travellers. And then, along with all these plunderings on land, there ,vas habitual piracy at sea. Not only states, but towns and individuals equipped vessels for buccaneering; and there were established refuges for marine freebooters. Take, again, the evidence furnished by the Thirty Years War in Germany. Universal marauding he;.

came the established systeln. Soldiers were brigands. Not only did they plunder the people everywhere, but they used "thousand-fold torments" to make them disclose the places where they had hidden their goods,; and the peasants had to "till their fields armed to the teeth" against their fe1 Io,v-countryrnen. Meanwhile the soldiers were themselves cheated by their officers, slnall and great, who some of them made large fortunes by their accumulated embezzlements, at the same time that the princes robbed the nation by debasing the coinage. Involved and obscure as the evidence is, no one can fail to recognize the broad fact that with progress·· towards a state. in which war is less frequent, and does not, as of old, implicate almost everyone, there has·· been a decrease of dishonesty, and a higher appreciation of honesty; to the extent that now robbery of a stranger has corne to be· as much a crime as robbery of a fellow-citizen. It is true that there are still thefts. It is true that there are still n1ultitudinous frauds. But the thefts are not so nUlnerous, and the frauds are not of such gross kinds as they were.

ROBBERY. 359 From the days· when kings·· frequently tricked their cred itors and shopkeepers boasted of their ability to pass bad money, as Defoe tells us, we have somewhat advanced in the respect for rneltrn and tu'um. Nay, as shown by Pike's I£istol'Y of Ori17~e, the contrast is marked even between the· amount of transgression against property during the war period ending in 1815 and the recent amount of such trans gression. § 133. But of the relationship alleged, the clearest proofs are furnished by contrasts between the warlike uncivilized tribes instanced above, and the peaceful uncivilized· tribes. Here are traits presented by some of these last. Not only, according to Hartshorne, is the harmless W ood Veddah perfectly honest, but he cannot conceive it· possible thataman should" take that ·which does not belong to hinl." Of the Esquimaux, among whom war ·i8 unknown, 'weread that "they are uniformly described as most scrupulously honest;" and any such qualification of this statement as is made by Bancroft, refers to Esquimaux demoralized by con tact ,vith white traders. Of the Fuegians we learn fronl Darwin that"If any present. was designed for one canoe, and it fell near another, it was invariably given to the right owner."

.And Snow says they were very honourable in their COIll, lnercial dealings with him. Concerning certain of the Papuans on the Southern coast of New Guinea, who are described as too independent for cOlnbined action in war, ,ve read that" in their bargaining the natives have generally been very honest, far more so than our 'o'wn people." .And concerning others of this race, Rops tells us that the natives of Dory give evidence" of an inclination to right and jus tice, and strong moral principles. Theft is considered by them as a ver.y grave offence, and is of very rare occur rence." A like character is ascribed by Rolf! to the abo rigines of Lette. In The Principles ofSociology,ᤤ431 and 360 THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS. 574, I have given testimonies respecting the honesty of the peaceful Todas, SEl,nta]s, Lepchas, Bodo and DhiInals, Hos, Chakmas, J akuns. IIere I add sorne further testiInonies.

Consul Baker tells us of the aborigines of Vera Cruz, now a subject race averse to military service, that "the Indian is honest, and seldom yields to even the greatest temptation to steal." In his description of a race inhabiting a "long strip of swamp and forest" at "the foot of the Himalayas," Mr. Nesfield says that "their honesty is vouched for by a hun dred stories;" "such at least is the character of the Tharu, so long as he remains in the safe seclusion of his solitary wilds," where he is free from hostilities. And ~hen, with the fact stated by J\tforgan concerning the Iroquois, that " theft, the most despicaule of human crimes, was scarcely known alnong them," we have to join the fact that their league had been forlned for the preservation of peace among its component peoples and had succeeded in its purpose for many generations.