90 THE HORSE AND HIS EIDER. 



nature. And yet how true and how strange it is to say 

 that of the best educated, most scientific, most intelli- 

 gent, and wealthiest classes in England, more than three- 

 quarters live and suffer, wither and decay, in clothing 

 as uncongenial to their nature as a covering of slate, in 

 substitution of their mother, would be to a nest of young 

 birds! 



In a cold, wet, variable climate like England, where, 

 especially in winter, extra clothing to that granted to 

 man by nature is absolutely required, the sensible and 

 self evident course for the Lord of Creation to pursue 

 would be to select from the living creatures around 

 him, and appropriate, the fur, feathers, wool, or hair that 

 warm them. 



And yet, instead of thus cherishing blood by what 

 has especially been created by Nature to warm blood, 

 we repair to the cold ground for succour! From its 

 produce we pick cotton and hemp, nourished by a cir- 

 culation of sap ; in short, from a mixture of perversity 

 and ignorance which appear to be as inexcusable as 

 they are unaccountable, we run for protection to the 

 wrong kingdom, to commit the imnatural error of clothing 

 ourselves as vegetables instead of as animals ! 



If a man has had nothing to do in this world but, 

 with a crown on his head and with his knees closed, to 

 sit very still on a throne, — with a coronet balanced on 



