254 
PASSIONAL ZOOLOGY. 
the re-partition of the products of labor. A compiler of newspa- 
pers, sold to the interests of capital, may find it very legitimate 
that a speculator should gain two millions in a few hours by stock- 
jobbing on shares of railroad stock, while the unfortunate prole- 
tary of the fields, who sustains the heat and burden of the day, ex- 
hausts his health and his strength without being able to gain the 
miserable pittance of black bread that his family looks for. 
But the wolf, which has never been bribed to defend slavery or 
stockjobbers — the wolf has always refused these base concessions. 
A magistrate publicly reproached the assassin of Nangis with 
the baseness of his conduct. ‘‘ What would you have replied 
the guilty man ; “ hunger drives the wolf from the woods.’’ 
“ The wolf can work,” replied the public accuser, with more elo- 
quence than truth. 
‘"ISTo sir, the wolf cannot work to turn a nailmaker’s wheel, like 
a poodle dog. This destiny is not in his attractions ; and if you 
attempt to falsify this savage nature, it will revolt, will turn and 
bite you.^ 
‘‘ But make labor attractive to him, that is to say, accordant with 
his aptitudes, and he will kill no longer.” 
What urges the wolf from the woods ? It is hunger. What 
burns his blood, what gnaws his bones, what drives him mad ? 
Hunger, still hunger. The dogs of happier zones, where the earth 
furnishes for all mouths, know not madness. It is the exclusive 
privilege of countries disinherited of the sun. 
(There have been cases of hydrophobia in Algiers, but onl}^ since 
the introduction of the French dog.) Madness is the despair of 
hunger, exalted to a paroxysm. The maddened wolf that attacks 
man and every animal that he meets with, is the desperate assas- 
sin, the savage and stormy nature that the chain of misery has 
worn into more painfully than the rest, the monster who kills for 
the sake of killing, to avenge himself — to render back to a merci- 
less society before his death, a small part of the evils which it has 
caused him to suffer. 
^ It is however true that the wolf can be made to work, at least the 
American wolf, which may be seen in Missouri actually employed in turn- 
ing a wheel. — T r. 
