HEDGEHOG AND MOLE. 
m 
Alas 1 a hundred times, alas! In place of executing I^apoleon’s 
plans of campaign against the banks and commerce, the French 
governments, heirs of the empire, grant premiums of one hundred 
thousand francs and more to the official organs of the bank for 
defending the operations of the monopolizers, and for answering 
with pleasant raillery the despairing prayers of the laborer, who 
asks to live by his work. And those thinkers placed highest in 
public esteem, seem to be struck with the same vertigo as the 
governments. 
Why defend the retailing, parasitical Shy lock, who nowhere 
cultivates the earth, who throughout his life has done nothing use- 
ful with his hands, who now raises a colossal tithe upon the labor 
of all nations 1 
The hedgehog has also advocates among the foresters of France 
and Germany. Many suppose it innocent because it destroys 
pheasants and partridges only in the egg, and because it wars only 
on new-born hares. As for me, v»^henever I find it I cut off its head. 
THE MOLE. 
Yirgil has defined the mole : Monstrum horrendum, informer 
ingens — cui Lumen ademptum ! 
How that reads : a monster, hideous, misshapen, concealed from 
the light. 
The mole is in fact the most monstrous of creatures. It is the 
most powerful of all quadrupeds for its muscular force in propor- 
tion to its size ; it is the most sanguinary of all the carnivoras. 
It is the most complete of all mammifers without excepting 
man, the champion best armed for war, for work, and for love. 
I have heard much of the strength of the elephant, which bears 
on its back towers loaded with warriors. I have often spoken of 
the locomotive power of the whale, which does not require more 
than a fortnight to make the tour of the globe. 
Finally, the tiger of Bengal has been cited to me as a blood- 
drinker, whose thirst is not easily cooled. 
The prowess of the elephant and that of the whale are but 
child’s play in comparison with the strength displayed by the 
