136 FACT AGAINST FICTION. 



stuff as the necessity of '^ keeping iqj the balance 

 of nature'- is really scarce worth alluding to, 

 save as it serves to afford a ^^assing derision for 

 those who moot such absurdities. 



We pass 23rotective laws for sea-gulls, which 

 cannot be made food of for mankind, while we 

 deny protection to the most useful and delicate 

 things we have for the well-arranged table, and 

 also, in a great measure, for the humble tables 

 of the poor. Protection to the pheasant, partridge, 

 grouse, and hare and rabbit, is growled at. They, 

 the first four, may be sought as delicacies for the 

 rich man's table, but the rabbit feeds tJiousands 

 of the poor^ who say that '^ they can get more 

 meat for themselves and children out of a couple 

 of rabbits, at the price they give for them, than 

 they could got for the same sum laid out in 

 butcher's meat, beef, pork, or mutton. It is this^ 

 perha})s, that makes farmers call the rabbits 

 ^^ vermin," for when it is taken into considera- 

 tion how much money I may say a million and 

 more of people lay out annually on the rabbits, 

 which otherwise nuist be laid out on the farmers' 

 stock, wliy, there may he more reasons than one 

 for tlic agricultural abuse sputtered on a j^ortion 



