ON THE EEARING OF PIIEA.SANTS BY HAND. 137 



of a people's food, tliat it would bo liarsli ruin 

 to take from tliem. In Southampton alone, — I 

 like to quote some town not far from "the Vale 

 of the Avon," — the annual sale of rabbits, in one 

 winter, to the j^oor, without including the skins, 

 is seventeen thousands of pounds. 



None but a farmer then, I think, would call the 

 rabbit a '^ useless vermin"; but men abuse things 

 according to their kind, and, therefore, the farmer 

 objects to rabbits because he thinks his crops make 

 them good to eat, and to be sought after by the 

 poor. If he wishes to run a tilt with reason against 

 the rabbit, let him reduce the price of his bullock 

 and his sheep, and put them more within the 

 culinary office of the cottage. 



It is amusing to hear men talk of things they 

 know not what, — at least, it would be amusing, if 

 their gabble had not a very mischievous tendency. 

 A cannibal, or man of colour witli that aj^petite, 

 provided he is not white, is exalted in rhyme by 

 somebody, who says, "wild in woods the noble 

 savage ran," or he is by other enthusiasts in glaring 

 compassion, said to be a gentleman — I suppose, in 

 all but his chops. In short, led by bleating demo- 

 crats against an imaginary slavery, or by dissenting 



