460 SUPPLEMENT. 



piidence) to recommend them, or justify the 

 dreadful havoc they constantly make among 

 this most useful part of the creation, if we 

 may he fairly allowed to decide, by the great 

 numbers annually doomed to death, in the 

 penury and credulity of one class, or the 

 invincible obstinacy and ignorance of the 

 other. 



The penury and credulity I allude to (and 

 which cannot be too often or emphatically 

 repeated), is that kind of saving knowledge 

 in the employer, inevitably productive of a 

 double deception ; for (without bestowing even 

 a remote thought upon the defective abili- 

 ties of the e)nployed)\\\% imagination, outstrip- 

 ping reflection, rapidly reaches an ideal cure, 

 at the least expense, totally forgetting that 

 self-preservation is a concomitant to low 

 cunning, and consequently more is lavished 

 upon the ignorant, obstinate, confident, or 

 necessitous, for the promotion of mischief 

 and danger, than would amply compensate 

 the enlightened practitioner for his assist- 

 ance in all cases of emergency. Numerous 

 facts might be adduced to demonstrate the 

 truth of these assertions (notwithstandini* 



