ON DRAFT CATTLE. Q11 



name of the Comet Society, have committed, 

 by night, the mod daring and inhuman out- 

 rages ; not only harmlefs and unoffending cat- 

 tle have been maimed and deftroyed, with cir- 

 cumftances of the raoft wanton barbarity, fuch 

 as cutting off the teats of cows, and the tongues 

 from the mouths of horfes, but even barns, 

 houfes, and ftacks, have been fired, and, I be- 

 lieve, fome murders committed. One cannot 

 help noticing, in this flagitious conduct., that 

 fenfelefs and infamous practice, which I am forry 

 is not confined to the poor vulgar, of taking 

 vengeance for the injuries committed by a man, 

 upon the feelings of his innocent beart. 



This ferment in the minds of the lower peo- 

 ple, and the confequent atrocities, may, with 

 the mod impartial truth, be attributed to thofe 

 inflammatory ballads, which have been circu- 

 lated with fo much induftry about the country ; 

 but flill more to thofe incendiary paragraphs 

 on the fubject of monopoly (a fubject. of which 

 the fagacious fcribes have as juft ideas as of the 

 planetary worlds) that have difgraced but too 

 many of our public prints. Some of thefe, in 

 a news-paper which I could name, are direct, 

 incentives to murder, and, in my opinion, ought 

 to have been prefented to a jury, as mifdemea- 

 nors of a moil injurious tendency towards the 

 public peace. There are fome men, I well 

 know, from whom their country had a right to 



x 4 expeft 



