held as useless; stupidly so; hedgehog-soup
being next door to chicken-broth for delicacy
and digestibility. Being useless, though
as harmless as toads, and diligent, too, in the
same direction—a fact not brought to light in
olden times—but being set aside from any of the
broader and more evident ways of human value,
they, too, have been under the Ishmaelite's
curse, with every man's hand against them; and
their own spines against every one. If
hedgehog-stew should ever come into fashion, they
would be favoured and bred like salmon-fry or
Dartmoor mutton, tenderly treated and lovingly,
for the better reception of the sauce and stuffing
to come; or, if they could be coaxed into such
spinosity and bigness as to make the capturing
of them a matter of valour and prowess, they
would be guarded from untimely slaughter, like
dog-foxes in the hunting counties, or wild boars
in the German woods. It is only because they
are not turned into food or raiment when dead,
or, at all events, into the causes of food and
raiment, and the helping on of the general
economy of their lords—it is only because they are
too prickly for pets, and too innocent for prey,
that they are so ignominiously destroyed: their
own right to a seat by the kitchen-fire of nature
being loftily set aside, and still more loftily denied.

Then there are dogs. If dogs were of no use,
would they be suffered to swarm and snarl as
they do: the heels and calves of the generations
being not seldom the sufferers? Certainly
not. But, then, they are valuable. We keep
them to guard our carts and houses by their
plentiful vociferations; to point at birds, and
to pick them up when they drop; to yelp after
hares and foxes; to plunge into rivers after
otters; to ferret rats out of their holes, and to
kill them by griping them at the nape when they
are ferreted out; to save lost banner-bearers
from the snow-drift; to be little Jackey's good-
tempered pony, and pretty Lizzie's uncompromising
guardian; to be their lord's playmates in
the house, and assistants in the forest; and,
when all things else have been reckoned up, to
help the butcher's bill of the lower kind of
eating-houses, and do their proudest duty under
the glorified appearance of mutton-pies. But
not their latest; for they yield a glove-making
skin, which can be manipulated into first-rate
"hand-shoes," as well as turned to all other
purposes, where a soft and smooth-grained
leather may be used. Not included in this
catalogue is that same inestimable quality of
companionship and petableness, which is,
perhaps, the dog s highest recommendation; going
further than guard or saving, than mutton-pies,
or dogskin gloves; going further than everything
but hunting; which, by-the-by, is only an
efflorescence of that quality—the bloom or flower
whereof this is the root. But take all this away,
and dogs would be run over and shot and
hanged and drowned and poisoned with poison
and sabred with knives—take all this away, and
who would care whether Ponto had pleasure in
hare-hunting on his own account? whether Flo
loved her pups with touching maternal tenderness?
whether Looloo enjoyed the dish of raw
truffles he had just nosed up? or whether Billy
took a real workman's pride in the artistic way
in which he polished off his cageful of rats? If
men did not find their own account in it all, the
poor four-footed canines might soon yelp their
last adieu to the sun, and howl their latest
execrations to the moon.

No one at present troubles himself about an
improved breed of monkeys. But what a stir
there would be if monkeys could be taught the
service of negroes, and set to hoe cotton and
plant sugar-canes in the place of Uncle Toms
and Aunt Sallys—patient, black, and perspiring!
Lately, however, monkey-fur, of one kind,
has been brought into use, so that Jocko has a
faint chance of rehabilitation offered him; and
if denied man's intimate friendship, if refused all
claim to kinship, if put below the salt and the
cousinship of their grandmothers disclaimed, if
found too light-minded for discipline and too
mischievous for work, still, in the form of black
long-haired skins for ladies' muffs and boas,
monkeys will rise in the scale of mercantile
esteem, and may, perhaps, be promoted to a
distinct niche in the Walhalla of Beasts. But,
Jocko! Jocko! if you could only be taught
to hoe and dig! If you would but learn how to
bear yourself with a little dignity, and be of use
as a substitution for negro flesh, how great would
be your mission! How much clearer your title
to be regarded as the poor relation of humanity!
Fancy a corps of gorillas instead of Butler's
Own; what a lot of dirty work the less for
human nature to do, and what an advantage to
the other side pointing southward from New
Orleans! The situations are not few in history,
where apes would have done as well as men, and
the shoulders of Adam's sons would have been
all the cleaner for the transfer of the burden.

What are man's peculiar and special beasts?
The beasts which give him clothes, and food,
and help? The beasts which he holds to have
been born into the world only for himself, and
whose sole title to existence is his convenience,
not unmixed with clemency and liberality?
First, there are cows and horses, of course;
cows for food, horses for help; and both for
post-mortem value in such waste and refuse as
is neither food nor clothing. Thus, in the horns
and hoofs, which go to make ornaments, glue,
prussiate of potash, and manure, among many
other things; in the hair, which, from the mane
and tail of the horse, is woven into sofa coverings,
chair-seats, and the old original crinoline,
besides being used for stuffing beds, and
so forth; and which from the cow is felted,
being too stout to weave, into many capital
additions to machinery; and in the skin, which
tannic acid turns into undeniable leather, bloomy
and durable. For taunic acid, which is a soluble,
acting on the gelatine of the skin, which is also
a soluble— as you may find out for yourself if
you like to boil your old gloves into soup, or
your worn-out stock of boots into a jelly—forms
that strong and rain-proof substance called
leather, and leather is only the gelatine of the