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KIDD’S OWN JOURNAT.. 

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drop of water. What matters it? They 
are going to be killed to-morrow! On one 
occasion Mr. Langham saw a drover knock 
out a bullock’s eye. A bystander remarked, 
‘T should like to know what difference it 
makes; most likely the bullock will be killed 
to-night or to-morrow.” 
But it does make much difference! In the 
first place, it inflicts a frightful torture on a 
dumb, helpless creature. In the second 
place, for aught we know, it maddens the 
animal, and impregnates its flesh with a 
poisonous nature, which brings its moral 
retribution on the race that inflicts it. Who 
knows how much of the madness, the ferocity, 
the brutality of man, is a reflection of his own 
treatment of the animal creation ? 
It is said, that many of the poor animals 
which supply the mutton for our tables are 
skinned alive, not before the death-wound is 
inflicted, but before life is extinct, and whilst 
the animal is yet struggling for self-preser- 
yation. Not long ago a journeyman butcher 
was charged with the offence before a magis- 
trate, and convicted. Men wager upon their 
horses that they willrun a certain distance 
in a given time; and they use the whip and 
the spur to compel them. So keenly do the 
poor creatures feel this torture, that they 
even exert themselves till they drop down 
dead, after having barely accomplished the 
task. 
Last year, a horse employed at a brewery 
refused, or was unable, to do its work; and 
they actually lighted a fire beneath its belly 
and scorched it. Yet even this was insuffi- 
cient to make it accomplish what nature was 
unfit for. The tortured animal was then 
dragged out by another horse into a field, 
and there left to recover by exposure to the 
cold air. Three men were tried for this 
offence and convicted; one of them was the 
brewer’s own son. Last year also the feel- 
ings of the whole country were harrowed in 
the case of one; King, who was convicted for 
roasting a cat alive; and, in the same year, 
the public were amused and delighted (we 
suppose they were, for they paid for seeing 
the exhibition!) by the suspension of a pony 
under the car of a balloon—the victim of 
human frivolity and heartlessness being hung 
by the belly in mid-air, above the spires and 
turrets of the great metropolis! * 
It is but lately that public attention has 
been directed to such matters. How far 
our forefathers carried their cruelty, is difficult 
to imagine. But we know that they delighted 
in bull-baiting, dog and cock fighting, and 
other barbarous amusements—in which the 
chivalrous inhabitants of Spain still rejoice. 

* We commented at great length upon both 
these enormities, at the time of their perpetration. 
==Ep. K. J. 

There, in that land of purest Popery, they 
bury Protestants in dunghills and_ stable- 
yards; and even exhume their bodies and 
bring them back from their graves to the 
doors of their relatives, if by chance the 
devotion of a Spanish Papist should have 
even grudged them a grave at all. And 
there also they scream with frantic joy when 
they see an infuriated bull tear open the 
bowels of a spirited horse, or an unfortunate 
torrero who has slipped his foot and become 
transfixed on the horns of the monster. 
France herself is now reviving such amuse- 
ments under the auspices of the priest-led 
emperor, for whose glorious advent the 
English romanists have been saying masses 
and singing praises, and in whose capital 
there yet survives a society for the preven- 
tion of cruelty to animals! A curious com- 
pound is human nature; and the manner in 
which we advance and recede at the same 
time,—repressing evil in one form, and 
reviving it in another, is a curious illustration 
of the difficulties ef our position, and the 
strength of those evil passions which are for 
ever prompting us to the commission of 
crime. 
We are, no doubt, advancing in the main. 
But if men, in such an age of comparative 
refinement as this, are yet to be found 
capable of committing such crimes,—and 
even enjoying the patronage and the rewards 
of public applause for committing them, how 
fearful must have been their excesses in less 
refined times! And how fearful even now in 
those numerous lands, where (as in Spain 
and Portugal, Italy, and the Pope’s entire 
dominions) a detective press has no existence! 
Little does man yet know what the heart 
of a brute really is; and how superior in 
many respects that heart is to his own. It 
is said, by the highest authority, that “the 
heart of man is evil above all things.” It is 
the throne of evil. How exquisitely faithful, 
kind, and sympathetic a well-trained, well- 
treated dog is! What a heart is enclosed in 
that wonderful structure! Can a human 
heart be found so devoted as this is? Does 
wife, or brother, or sister, or friend, inspire 
such confidence in permanent attachment as 
this! Who can ever doubt the attachment 
of his dog? 
A horse is equally susceptible of attach- 
ment; but because of its magnitude and want 
of domesticity it does not enjoy the same 
advantages. But in those exceptional cases 
where they are enjoyed, the horse exhibits 
not only attachment and fidelity, but marvel- 
lous understanding. The Arab talks to his 
horse as to a friend, and he cultivates its 
understanding by love alone. It is only by 
kindness that the intelligence of the inferior 
creation can be developed in a marvellous 
manner, unknown in this land of excessive 


