p. 9 | Untitled article

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jan 27, 1904

"BY THE WILD BEASTS OF THE EARTH."

ONE of the four destructive agencies which prey upon the people as predicted in both Old and New Testaments is "the wild beasts of the earth." In Eze. 14:21, God names as the "four sore judgments upon Jerusalem, the sword, and the famine, and the evil beasts, and the pestilence;" and to John is revealed as scourges under the fourth seal and onward, "to kill with sword, and with famine, and with death [margin, "pestilence,"], and by the wild beasts of the earth."

The only reason why these should not be taken literally is the query which might rise as to the last; the number of people slain by wild beasts seems small. But a note in the New York Medical Record of December 12, 1903, presents the following:—

Victims of the Jungle.—It is noted in The Times of London that in 1901 more human beings were killed by wild animals than in any year since 1875 except one, and reached a total of 3,651, while last year it was 2,836; and the number of deaths from snake bite was 23,166. Tigers killed 1,046 persons, of whom 544 perished in Bengal, 65 being in a single district. This was due to the depredations of a man-eater, for the destruction of which a special reward was offered without avail. In another district, where 43 persons were killed, most of them fell victims also to a man-eater. Wolves slew 377 persons. Eleven thousand one hundred and thirty deaths took place in Bengal alone from snake-bite, 3,258 of these being in the Patna division, while 5,110 deaths took place in the United Provinces; 80,796 cattle (an increase on the previous year) were killed by wild animals last year, and 9,019 by snakes. Tigers killed 30,555 of these; leopards, 38,211; and wolves and hyenas most of the remainder.

Add to this record the many deaths known and unknown resulting from ptomain poisoning and diseases incident to flesh-eating diet. "Evil beasts" is one of death's most effective agents.