the thumb of the right hand rent away, beyond the possibility of mending.  Whence the phenomenon?  It comes of the writer’s determined habit of stopping the bully.  Walking along the street, or the country-road, I occasionally see a big blackguard fellow thrashing a boy much less than himself.  I am well aware that some prudent individuals would pass by on the other side, possibly addressing an admonition to the big blackguard.  But I approve Thomson’s statement, that “prudence to baseness verges still”; and I follow a different course.  Suddenly approaching the blackguard, by a rapid movement, generally quite unforeseen by him, I take him by the arm, and occasionally (let me confess) by the neck, and shake him till his teeth rattle.  This, being done with a new glove on the right hand, will generally unfit that glove for further use.  For the bully must be taken with a grip so firm and sudden as shall serve to paralyze his nervous system for the time.  And never once have I found the bully fail to prove a whimpering coward.  The punishment is well deserved, of course; and it is a terribly severe one in ordinary cases.  It is a serious thing, in the estimation both of the bully and his companions, that he should have so behaved as to have drawn on himself the notice of a passer-by, and especially of a parson.  The bully is instantly cowed; and by a few words to any of his school-associates who may be near, you can render him unenviably conspicuous among them for a week or two.  I never permit bullying to pass unchecked; and so long as my strength and life remain, I never will.  I trust you never will.  If you could stand coolly by, and see the cruelty you could check, or the wrong you could right, and move no finger to do it, you are not the reader I want, nor the human being I choose to know.  I hold the cautious and sagacious man, who can look on at an act of bullying without stopping it and punishing it, as a worse and more despicable animal than the bully himself.

Of course, you must interfere with judgment; and you must follow up your interference with firmness.  Don’t intermeddle, like Don Quixote, in such a manner as to make things worse.  It is only in the case of continued and systematic cruelty that it is worth while to work temporary aggravation, to the end of ultimate and entire relief.  And sometimes that is unavoidable.  You remember how, when Moses made his application to Pharaoh for release to the Hebrews, the first result was the aggravation of their burdens.  The supply of straw was cut off, and the tale of bricks was to remain the same as before.  It could not be helped.  And though things came right at last, the immediate consequence was that the Hebrews turned in bitterness on their intending deliverer, and charged their aggravated sufferings upon him.  Now, my friend, if you set yourself to the discomfiture of a bully, see you do it effectually.  If needful, follow up your first shaking.  Find out his master, find out his parents; let the fellow see distinctly that your interference is no passing fancy.  Make him understand that you are thoroughly determined that his bullying shall cease.  And carry out your determination unflinchingly.