APOLOGISES. 27 



' whose tenderness and love smooth the pillow in our 

 sickness, and rob the gloomy pathway to eternity of 

 so many of its terrors as to cause our chief regret to 

 be the leaving so tender, so perfect a being behind 

 us ! " Reader, I love you for your enthusiasm in so 

 bright a cause, and offer my humble tribute with 

 equal devotion at so fair a shrine. I quite acquit 

 ladies of being the willing perpetrators of any 

 acts of cruelty towards any animals (except their 

 lovers) ; but that horses do suffer in their cause 

 is decidedly the case. Ladies, in a general way, 

 are all delighted by fast travelling, no matter by 

 what sort of vehicle. I dare say the inventor of that 

 Brogdignagian butterfly the aerial machine had the 

 gratification of the ladies in view when he projected 

 its construction : if so, I wish him every success, and 

 trust the ladies will then go as fast as they can wish : 

 it will save my poor friends (horses) many an aching 

 limb. Now, whether the woman of rank and fortune 

 travels in her own carriage with posters, or one in a 

 humbler walk of life goes by the Manchester Tele- 

 graph, the inn that furnishes the boys who drive the 

 fastest, or the coach that goes the fastest, is sure to 

 be the inn and the coach most patronised by ladies. 

 The former rolls along in her soft-lined and well hung 

 carriage at an accelerated pace, stimulated by extra 

 fees to the post-boys. The horses, it is true, by dint 

 of whip and spur, go the last mile as rapidly as the 

 first. What their sufferings may be during the stage 

 or after never strikes the mind of its fair inmate : it 

 never strikes her that to arrive at the end of twelve 

 miles ten minutes the sooner, she is in point of fact 

 inflicting wanton suffering on four naturally noble, 

 generous, and unoffending animals. Once only oblige 



