304 THE HORSE. 



been periodically published by them, since that ex- 

 cellent one, (Primatt's Duty of Mercy to Brute 

 Animals,) which has been lately republished, with 

 notes and illustrations, by the Rev. A. Broome. 

 This gentleman is the humane and zealous founder 

 of the present Society for the Protection of Animals, 

 towards the duties of which, no one has contributed 

 with greater zeal, enthusiasm, and assiduity, than 

 the honorary secretary, Lewis Gompertz, Esq. The 

 society has the patronage and countenance of noble- 

 men, ladies, and gentlemen, of high rank and influ- 

 ence in the country, among whom may be reckoned 

 some of acknowledged first-rate talent. The recent 

 bill brought into parliament by C. N. Palmier, Esq. 

 M. P. for Surrey, and a worthy patron of the Animal 

 Society, for the purpose of remedying a defect in Mr. 

 Martin's Act, was thrown out by too large a majority 

 to allow of any present hope. The bill was in course 

 advocated by that constant and never failing friend of 

 liberty and humanity, Mr. William Smith. The 

 adverse arguments were of the usual tenour. The 

 old bugbear abstraction, and the insuperable diffi- 

 culty of line-draiving, formed the burden of the 

 logical fund. But a late great and since deeply 

 regretted statesman, a late convert however, declared 

 in his place in parliament, that all governments ought 

 to be conducted on abstract principles ; there is no 

 doubt of this, as the ground work and foundation of 

 all that is just and right in human affairs ; at the 

 same time, every experienced political moralist is 

 aware of that discrimination, of those compromises 

 and allowances, independently of which, the affairs 



