THE RATS. 



being, but it is very hard on the genius of the body, the 

 spirit which had its halcyon days before the pithecoid 

 monkey developed into the anthropoid ape, and the anthro- 

 poid ape looked higher. And the games and sports which 

 we devise for our relief all fail in this, that they have no 

 worthy end in view. The means is itself the end, an ar- 

 rangement which is always demoralizing. A man who uses 

 dogs to worry useful jackals and harmless hares to death is 

 not only doing no good, but he must be case-hardened if he 

 feels no gnawings of remorse when the deed is done and 

 the excitement is over. But remorse will be hungry indeed 

 before it gnaws a man for taking the life of a rat. In rat- 

 hunting the end is a positive virtue, and the means are 

 most laudable, more humane certainly than cats and 

 poisons, and infinitely more so than that instrument of 

 cruelty, the abominable iron rat-trap. 



But, if it is a virtue to make war on the rat, it is none 

 to confound friend and foe, and offer upon the altar of 

 ignorance and prejudice another little animal which, with 

 palpitating heart and tremulous nose, ventures into the 

 house in these cold, wet nights. I refer, of course, to the 

 musk-rat. " The unfortunate nobleman who now languishes 

 in Dartmoor jail " has not been more ill-used and mis- 



