Uncle Dick and Lisa's Old Time Animal Tales

 

     The Rev. Dr. Ellinwood, Secretary of the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, in a letter from Cawnpore, India, to the New York Evangelist, has the following paragraphs:

     Our interest was greatly excited at the Secundra Orphanage by one inmate, known as the”Wolf Boy.” Within ten years two boys, said to have been living wild with wolves, have been brought to Mr. Erhardt for support. One of them died about two years since, having proved too untamable to endure human habits. The one still remaining was found when apparently about 7 years of age, and he has been eight years at the Orphanage.

     The story of his capture is this: Some native farmers, being greatly troubled by the incursions of wolves, followed them to their dens, and proceeded “to smoke them” out by building fires in the entrance. At length the whole wolf family emerged, old and young, and among them this boy, running repidly on hands and feet. The story seemed to be corroborated by the fact that, when brought to the Orphanage, he still bore the marks of the fire through which he had passed. He also walked like a quadruped, and would receive at first only raw flesh, which he ate as all the carnivors do, gnawing it at the side of his mouth. As we saw him he was standing erect, and had learned to submit to clothing. His expressions were of course unintelligentable, and sounded more like those of an animal than like a human voice, though he was scarcely more beastial in appearance than many of the lowest grade of idiots. There was, however, a restless motion of the head and a gnashing of the teeth, which appeared decidedly canine.

     That children have been nourished and reared by wolves, is not to be credited without the very strongest evidence.

     The missionaries at Secoundra, however, and so far as I know, all other intelligent citizens in the neighborhood, regard the proof in those two cases as entirely valid. Nor are these the only “wolf boys” who are claimed to have been found in India. Max Muller, of London, on seeing some accounts of these curious freaks of nature, opened a correspondence, some months since, with various persons in India on the subject.

     As a result there appeared thus far six cases, which seem to be well attested by missionaries, and by officers in the civil and military service.

     There is no country where such things would be more likely to occur than in India. The prevalence of wild animal life, even in well-settled districts, is surprising. We saw in one instance not less than thirty huge apes in one band only a few rods from the railway. Deer or gazelles were frequently seen feeding within easy shot of laborers in the field. On two occasions goats were carried off by wolves from the mission compounds, in which we were spending the night. According to a recent census of the northwest provinces, 2.000 lives were destroyed in one year by wild animals, mostly wolves. The great majority are children who are snatched away at nightfall from the vicinity-sometimes from the very doors of their rude homes.

     With those facts no further light can be given on the subject of the wolf-boys.

     Whether the maternal instinct of a wolf, when not particularly hungry, might in one of 10,600 cases take such a freak as to protect a child, which she had intended to eat, and allow it to share her prey, is a question for each theorist to decide for himself. It is worthy of note that all these children are idiots. If we suppose that they were originally sound, their wolf regimen has reversed the Darwinian process, and borne them back to beastality, both in body and in mind.