With reference to the poem, The Cold Within highlights some of the evils that dishonour the human race are:

1. Coldness of the hearts i.e. no emotions and lack of warm human feelings. All the characters in the poem lack human feelings. Everyone has one or the other reason for not sharing the stick and hence they die of coldness which was within their hearts.
2. Racial prejudice: white women didn’t like the black man in the gang. She did not want to waste her stick for the ‘wretched’ black man. Similarly, the black man also did not share his stick as all others were white and he hated them all.
3. Religious parochialism: The second character also has a stick which he does not want to use to keep the fire burning as no one in the group was following his Church. Hence he did not share his stick.
4. Jealousy: The third man was not rich like others which made him jealous of others. Hence he did not share his stick.
5. Selfishness: The fourth man of the group was rich and did not want to share his wealth i.e. “stick” with others. Similarly, the sixth character was selfish in nature. He did not share his stick as well as there was no way others would repay him.

Read the summary of The Cold Within