"THE LOWING HERD" 



"Your cattle, too — Allah made them; serviceable, dumb crea- 

 tures; they change the grass into milk; they come ranking home at 

 evening time." — Carlyle. 



Remote from the manners and the sights of the street, 

 here are we secure against most of the pains which come 

 of the contemplation, casual or intimate, of other folk's 

 sufferings. No hooded ambulance moves joltlessly, 

 tended by enwrapt bearers, on pathless way; no formal 

 procession paces from the house of death to the long 

 last home. Immune from the associations which oft 

 subdue the crowd, as well as from its too exciting plea- 

 sures, and participating only indirectly in its inevitable 

 sorrows, yet we are occasionally forced to remember 

 that troubles do come to all that is flesh, and that keen 

 is the grief attendant upon enforced separations even 

 among animals which cannot call reason to their solace. 

 Man cannot claim to be the sole proprietor of the luxury 

 of woe, and may he not draw edifying lessons from con- 

 templating the transient sorrows of his pets and domestic 

 animals ? Is he to confine his schooling on the whole- 

 some theme of the frailty of flesh solely to his own 

 species ? It is not to be denied that animals lower in 

 the scale than mankind have acute sense of bereavement, 

 though it is equally certain that in their case the healing 

 influences of time are more prompt and potent. 



An illustration may be cited. Two favourite Irish 



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