MARTEN AND POLECAT : ATTORNEY AND USURER. 167 
vile industry, flourishing largely in the lymbos of civilization, de- 
stroy far greater numbers than tlie cannon or bayonet. 
The rnarlen and polecat have a suppleness of spine which ena- 
bles them to creep through the narrowest apertures into the fowl- 
house and dove-cot, where these wicked beasts wallow in blood, 
grow drunk with murder, kill for the pleasure of killing. 
The suppleness of spine and inextinguishable thirst for blood, 
represent to us the insatiable greediness, the cunning and adroit- 
ness of the usurer, the lawyer and attorney who glide through the 
narrowest flaws of the code, sometimes shaving the penitentiary to 
penetrate into the houses of the producers, to circumvent poor la- 
borers, and to bleed them to the last shilling. The marten is piti- 
less. It kills every thing in the fowl-house if it can : thus the 
usurer, who has drawn the last dollar from his victim, will cast 
him on the straw of a jail, and sell his furniture, without pity for 
the unhappy family which the detention of its head leaves a prey 
to misery and to the terrible temptations of hunger. It is chiefly 
on the innocent species — the pigeon, the fowl, the pheasant, the 
rabbit — that the marten and polecat satisfy their rage for blood. 
It is always on the weak, on the poor laborer of cities, on the 
humble proletary of the field ; that the sharper, the parasite, the 
usurer, love, to cast themselves. 
The marten inhabits the forest, the beech marten, the vicinity of 
country houses — it is agricultural industry which has suffered most 
from the frauds of the law and of usury. 
The remarkable adhesion of the fur to the skin, which gives 
their value to these peltries, symbolizes the avaricious closeness of 
all who live by these base crafts, lawyers who traffic in falsehoods, 
sellers of false provisions, etc. 
The infected smell which exhales from the bodies of these stink- 
ing beasts is that of peculation, stockjobbing, violation, murder ; 
which transudes from a gangrened and rotten society. Would jou 
cure the social body of its infamies, and purge the country of the 
polecats? The method is the same. It has moreover the ad- 
vantage of being extremely easy. The means of healing the 
wounds of society, and of destroying the skunk, consists in substi- 
tuting fraternity for selfishness, solidarity for divergence, associa- 
