INFLUENZA. 181 
the neighborhood of London. They are turned out to die miserably 
under the plea of humanity; the utmost limit of cruelty is justified or 
made pleasant by a pretense to sympathy. The poor horse literally 
starves; were there food to eat, the remaining strength would not serve 
to collect it. Still the proprietor is so very humane he cannot, endure 
to destroy the property he has paid for; the poor animal is therefore 
thrust forth to cheaply live, or to die without trouble to its owner. 
INFLUENZA. 
This affection may rage throughout the kingdom, or it may he located 
upon a very circumscribed spot. In a disorder so eccentric, it is very 
difficult to decide the question whether or not it is contagious; it com- 
monly runs through the stable in which it appears; but it does not in- 
variably attack every animal within the building. It may, in a large 
edifice, first seize the horse nearest the door, then travel to the stall 
farthest from the entrance; thus it skips about without regularity, and 
often spares many individuals. 
Occasionally influenza fixes upon an animal when in the field; but it 
is a more probable visitant of the stable: this is a seeming proof that 
the contagion does not reside in the air, since the atmosphere is as much 
as possible excluded from every mews. We may conjecture it is not 
dependent upon any vapor exuding from the earth, since the creatures 
whose noses are nearly always in contact with the herbage are, of all 
others, least liable to the affection. 
It is terrible to contemplate the suffering and loss of life which have 
been consequent upon the errors of mankind. Influenza is regarded as 
a new disease; a new name deceives the world, though it is more than 
probable that a disorder of a low, febrile, and typhoid character has 
prevailed among animals for many ages. Nature has, for thousands of 
years, been striving to enforce the self-evident truth that man is by 
moral obligation bound to provide for the welfare of the animal he 
enslaves. His gain or the inclination of his will can be no argument 
against the fulfillment of so plain a duty; the implied contract, the com- 
mon parent of all living things, has been emphasizing with sickness and 
with death; all has been to no purpose. Cunning men have been 
employed, and nostrums have been invented to maintain misrule; wealth 
has been sacrificed and ruin endured, to uphold an unrighteous cause; 
but the voice of nature pleading for her children has not been under- 
stood. 
Even at this day the old fault is to be met with on every hand; it is 
exhibited by the rich as well as by the poor, by the highly educated and 
