THE WATER-SHREW. 31 



whip would only confirm it in its obstinacy. All 

 cruelty is simply diabolical, and can in no way be 

 justified. 



Supposing that the two cases could be reversed 

 for just one hour, what a wonderful change there 

 would be in the opinion of men ; for it may be 

 assumed that the person most given to inflicting 

 pain and suffering is the least tolerant of it himself. 



There is, perhaps, hardly one of my readers who 

 does not know some one person who finds an exqui- 

 site delight in hurting the feelings of others by 

 various means, such as ridicule, practical jokes, ill- 

 natured sayings, and so on. If so, he will be toler- 

 ably certain to find that the same person is especially 

 thin-skinned himself, and resents the least approach 

 to a joke of which he is the subject. 



So, if the shrew were to be the afflicted individual, 

 and the human the victim, there would be found' no 

 one so averse to the medicinal process as he who 

 had formerly resorted to it under different circum- 

 stances. 



This principle is finely carried out, in the terrible 

 scene of Dennis, the executioner's, last hours in 

 Barnaby Budge. 



These are not pleasant subjects ; and we will pass 

 on to another shrew that is generally found in the 

 water, and called from thence the Water-shrew. It 

 is a creature that may be found in many running 

 streams, if the eyes are sharp enough to observe its 



