THE BADGER 



precaution and assistance sometimes a danger- 

 ous, always an agonizing ordeal. 



No, the terms are not hard. Take the 

 case of a fox, the most hunted of animals. 

 The ordinary lot of a fox compared with that 

 of any other creature, wild or domestic, or 

 even with man himself, is not an unenviable 

 one. Unlike the domestic animals, he is not 

 born into servitude or to die in early life by 

 the butcher's knife or axe. Happier than 

 man, he lives his life, whether longer or 

 shorter, free from the worries, cares, and the 

 thousand ills which flesh is heir to. The 

 fox's life is free as air. Protected for the 

 most part from the natural consequences 

 of his marauding disposition, fair play is 

 given to him to avoid the punishment he 

 deserves by the exercise of that strategy, 

 activity, and endurance with which he is 

 so abundantly endowed. Two or three 

 days in the three hundred and sixty- five 

 he may have to exert himself more or less 

 to save his brush, or the end may come 

 swiftly and suddenly after a long run ; but 

 even so, are there not many of us who would 



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