10 



PLOWIiS^G-SINGLE TEAMS. 



Law-giver has so strikingly, so forcibly developed to ns, 

 to-wit, the law of kindness and love. Let this rule of 

 action be the first elemental law of those who witness 

 the mercy and goodness of the Deity in all the glory of 

 nature, whether adorned in the rich verdure of the open- 

 ino" spring, or the golden sheaves of autumnal harvest. 

 Brute, as a brute is, he is one step in that magnificent 

 nascent order of things between the polypus and man — 

 the greatest production from the Greatest of Producers. 

 In Bis occult mysterious structure of every living, creep- 

 ing thing, our exalted Creator has been pleased to work 

 by that same universal law, and it is for man, his noblest 

 creation, to study and adapt a principle so clearly de- 

 fined and sustained by that Creator to him. to what he 

 has created for him. We have heretofore acted towards 

 dumb animals too much upon the old puritanical 

 doctrine of ''total depravity," upon '-the spare the rod 

 spoil the child " dogma, which, leaving the question of 

 its truth or justice upon bipeds, is totally inappropriate 

 and ill-chosen, in the opinion of your Committee, upon 

 quadrupeds. The infliction of blows upon the poor 

 brute begets a correspondent desire to reciprocate by 

 the free use of his extremities, or grass-croppers, the 

 application of which, to sensitive humanity, is not at all 

 pleasant or agreeable ; moreover, if he learns while we 

 are venting our spite upon him what we really want 

 him to do. he knows enough to thwart our desire, often 

 preferring to let us exhaust ourselves in pounding his 

 ribs while he still stands (in military parlance) "as you 

 are." How often, for instance, have we seen that useful 

 animal the horse, after having been beaten, kicked and 

 thrashed for whole hours Avithout mercy to obtain his 



