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CHAPTER X. 



^HE Reptile-house in the Garden of the Zoological 

 -■- Society of London has proved to be of no small 

 attraction. I remember when the unhappy carnivora 

 were doomed to live therein, breathing their own impu- 

 rities, and dragging on a miserable existence as long as 

 their constitutions enabled them to bear up against the 

 miasmata that embittered their shortened, incarcerated 

 lives. In vain was every argument enforced against the 

 continuation of this condemned cell for carnivorous cap- 

 tives. For a long time, the answer to all remonstrance 

 was after the reply of those who still, in their despair, 

 cling to the Smithfield abomination :* — The place was 

 provided for the animals, and they must bear it as they 

 could, — no matter what the cost, or the suffering, or the 

 intolerable nuisance to all who were blest or cursed with 

 noses. At last, the zoological John Bull was roused. 

 Like his political brother, he showed his capacity for 

 bearing a great deal, and was treated accordingly by 

 those who did not know the nature of the beino- with 

 whom they had to reckon. The zoological Bull gave 

 signs of kicking, and then it was very wisely considered 

 that there was something in his remonstrance, and a new 

 den for the carnivorous quadrupeds was built, where 

 they breathe the free air of heaven, and live long and 

 comparatively happy accordingly, notwithstanding the 

 cantankerous London clay, so fatal to the race. Their 

 old roofed dens, every one of which looked into a close 

 room, odoriferous with ammonia and all the rest of it, 

 to an intensity not to be described, were appropriated to 



* Now, to the joy of all disinterested Londoners, abolished. 



