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the husbandmen of Nebraska imitating their foolish example by exterminating 

 another friendly bird, which they fed to the hogs in vast numbers, the conse- 

 quence of which was, that swarms of grasshoppers immediately made their ap- 

 pearance and annihilated the products of their labors. But there is another as- 

 pect to this matter, and that is the moral, which is even more remarkable. In 

 casting our eyes over the numerous catalogue of human crimes and frailties ; 

 over the list of those who have perished on the scaffold, or died some other 

 death of violence, — the result of blasted character and the world's scorn, — it is 

 useful and interesting to know if the germs of their turpitude were perceptible 

 in the days of their youthful innocence; whether the cold-blooded murderer of 

 after life gave evidences of his future ferocity by the torture of dumb, unoffen- 

 ding brute creatures. The tyrant Domitian, while yet an infant, history in- 

 forms us, foreshadowed that diabolical character which subsequently terrified 

 the world, in his love of cruelty to flies and other insects, by tearing off their 

 wings and legs. A royal child, afterwards Louis XIII of France, once crushed 

 beneath the heel of his boot a little sparrow which had taken refuge in his bo- 

 som ; seeing which, the good King, his father, Henry IV, exclaimed to his 

 Queen : "Wife, I pray that I may oulive that son, else he will be sure to mal- 

 treat his mother ! And the prediction was verified ; for we know that Marie-de- 

 Medicis died at Cologne at 68 years of age, exiled and reduced to the greatest 

 extreme of misery by her son. Henry IV proved a prophet. Moreover, at the 

 seige of Montauban, this same cruel child, now become a monarch and a man, 

 heartlessly stood by and mimicked the dying contortions of his protestant pris- 

 oners. Hogarth, you may remember, in his "Four Phases of Cruelty", makes 

 the child that is represented as torturing a dog in the first picture, terminate his 

 career by a murder in the last. Civilization has been aptly compared to a fine 

 diamond, which each succeeding generation polishes a side, or angle, of. Now 

 if this simile be correct, it follows, I think, as a natural consequence, that one 

 of these angles must represent humanity to the inferior animals ; and that this 

 Bocial gem of ours can never be complete until this one is rendered as resplend- 

 eut as the rest. 



Upon the right bank of the Ganges stands a lofty and beautiful monolith 

 of red granite, bearing inscriptions thereon, which, until lately, could not be 

 interpreted. A learned Pundit has, however, deciphered them, and what do 

 you suppose they mean ? Why, it is an ukase, made by the reigning sovereign 

 of the time, forbidding cruelty to animals ! Think of it, that in distant India, 

 2100 years ago, the policy and humanity of mercy to God's inferior creatures 

 was proclaimed, while we in our time have delayed making a similar provision, 

 until some dozen years ago ! But we have gone to work in earnest, it must be 

 admitted, to repair this great national wrong, and within the past twelve years 

 thirty-four states of the Union, recognizing the justice and beauty of the ex- 

 ample of New York, have incorporated among their laws statutes almost iden- 

 tical with our own. I wish you had the time and the patience to listen to my 

 experience of the prejudice and opposition by which this merciful movement 

 was surrounded, in its inception,, but this may not be, and I must hasten to a 

 conclusion. Cruelty to animals is in itself bad enough, but it becomes doubly 



