the horse is cogent. One can readily see
it might be urged on their own behalf by the
cow, the donkey, the camel, and the elephant.
Perhaps not so cogently by the last-mentioned
animal, for somehow or other man has made a
pet of him, and the more he is petted and the
less he has to do, the better he is treated.
When he works hard in his native country, or
in any of those countries where he is employed
as a beast of burden, he gets nothing but his
food and water; but when he becomes an
ornamental animal, with nothing to do, he is treated
to apples, oranges, and biscuits. It is the way
of the world. The useless classes are always
the most pampered. I don't know about the
camel. I believe he does not care about apples,
oranges, and biscuits; but still there may be
something which he does care about. How do
we know that he is not passionately fond of
pine-apples, and a "drop of something" in his
water?

We do not take much pains to consult
the tastes of our best friends. The fawning
sycophantic favourite always gets the best
of it. The horse says: "Look at the dog,
the cat, the canary, and the parrot, and compare
their condition and privileges with those of the
working brutes." Let us look at them. I will
take the instance of my dog Tiny. I will not
call him a pampered menial, but a bloated
aristocrat. He is an idle dog, utterly useless;
never does anything but mischief, never hunted
anything in his life but some defenceless
chickens, never caught anything but the
distemper, never barks at strangers except in the
daytime. Yet I lavish every sort of kindness
upon this dog as if he were the most useful
creature in my establishment. He is present at
every meal, and gets tit-bits at every chair; he
has chicken-bones afterwards on a china plate;
he is washed and combed; he is petted, and
made much of; he is allowed to lie on the best
cushions and the daintiest rugs; he is taken out
for walks and into society, where, with
impunity, he generally misbehaves himself in one
way or other. Look at the luxuries which that
dog enjoys. He has butter to his bread, lumps
of sugar, tea and cake with it, wine of Oporto—
he acquired the taste during his indisposition,
and it has grown upon him, so that he makes a
beast (no, a human being) of himself whenever
he gets the chance. In one respect that dog
is more fortunate than his master. He goes
into the very highest society, and is received
there with open arms. I have seen him
confabulating with a duke's dog on terms of the
closest familiarity, when I, his master, dared not
go up and speak to the duke.

Then, again, there is my canary-bird. Not
only is it a regulation of the establishment that
he shall have fresh seed and water every
morning, but he has lumps of sugar and dainty bits
of green meat thrust between the bars of his
cage. His house is swept out every day, and
his floor carefully sanded; if he shows the
est symptoms of indisposition, his drink is
medicinally impregnated with saffron or the
oxide of iron. He is a privileged person, and
he knows it; he flies down upon the breakfast-
table and helps himself, and, turning up his
beak at crumbs, shows a pampered preference
for sugar. And what return does he make for
all this? Sings morning, noon, and night
until his master is almost deafened with his
noise.

The Cat. Petted and pampered too. His
partiality for fish is indulged on every
convenient occasion. Too idle to catch mice, the
mice are caught for him, and he makes an easy
prey of them as they run out of the mouth of
the trap. He takes his sport like a bloated
aristocrat as he is; has his game driven up by
beaters to his very feet, in a battue. Every
night that cat goes out upon the spree and
comes home Heaven knows at what hour in the
morning!

My half-dozen of bantams have everything
their own way. I have given over the garden
to them. They are lords and ladies of all they
survey there. I cannot have flowers. I cannot
have vegetables. To humour my bantams, I
must have nothing but gravel, worms, and
insects. If I do not go down every morning and
feed them upon the very best shelled wheat,
they march into the house and peck at my legs.
When the snow came on the other day, they
left their house, as not being comfortable
enough for them, and insisted upon roosting on
the backs of my best mahogany chairs, in the
dining-room. The noise they make when any
female member of the community lays a
ridiculous egg, is dreadful. If I go out and beat
them they only make more noise; and the
moment my back is turned, the cocks all set up
crowing in token that they have got the best of
me. They are the artfullest cocks and hens I
ever knew. They are aware that I am flattered
by their flying up on the window-sill and
rapping with their beaks on the glass to call my
attention when I am busy writing, and they do
it on all occasions, their reward being some
chopped meat—they have no objection to their
own species—or a handful of canary-seed, which
they consider a dainty. I even indulge those
fowls with black-beetles, which I take much
trouble to catch for them with elaborate snares
in the back kitchen. What thought and cruel
ingenuity do I exercise on behalf of those
bantams! I pour some double stout into a deep
basin, I place the basin in the back kitchen, I
fix a little wooden ladder to the side of the
earthenware wall, and then I enshroud the back
kitchen in Cimmerian darkness. The beetles,
lurking in their holes, smell the double stout
(which they instinctively know to be Barclay and
Perkins's best), creep cautiously out, ascend the
ladders, and reaching the giddy top of the wall,
make a false step, and fail into the seductive
but treacherous abyss. But they are not
drowned. Such is the refined cruelty of man,
that he only puts enough double stout into the
abyss to tempt his innocent victims to
besottedness. When they from the stunning
effects of their fall, they think they are in the