330 HOME LIFE IN FLORIDA. 



Now, this complaint was written two years ago, and, by 

 way of pointing out the moral of our statement of a mo- 

 ment ago, we will add that in the neighborhood referred 

 to, although the objectionable law is still in force, the 

 thrifty settlers are no more troubled with the inroads of 

 their four-footed enemies. It has been the experience there, 

 as in many other localities (our own is one of them), that 

 the owners of this lawless kind of stock were made to feel 

 that it was somewhat unprofitable to find their " bunches," 

 as they are termed, of "razor-backs" gradually but surely 

 disappearing without any return. Of course no one ever 

 kncAV what became of them. Certainly not: they simply 

 departed and left no trace behind, unless sundry unusually 

 thrifty growths, in spots, of trees or vegetables might serve 

 as indications that some strong fertilizers had been buried 

 close by. 



So, finally, the owners concluded either to shut up their 

 hogs and fatten them at home, or kill them once for all. 



''Let us be thankful," we heard a justly irate settler 

 exclaim one day, "Let us be thankful, at least, that the 

 law allows us to go to all this expense to try to shut out 

 those wretches, and don't compel us to open wide our gates 

 for their benefit ! " 



And he used the word "try" advisedly too, because it 

 is only a ' ' try " after all ; for, get inside they will in some 

 way, in spite of the expensive "legal fence," whose erection 

 and repairs bear heavily on purse or muscle. 



And if, exasperated beyond endurance at the sight of 

 his treasured potato patch trampled and uprooted, and his 

 chief dependence for his family's subsistence destroyed be- 

 fore his eyes, the injured man ventures to punish the dep- 

 redators (openly), or do ought else but turn them away 

 without harm to them (as to himself and property, what 

 matters that?), he is ignominiously summoned before a 



