NNNNN

of observation, and of visiting them from time to time, to notice their progressive advancement, their variety, formation, &c.

༣།

"I have known," says Mr. Young, in his "Es say on Humanity to Animals, " 1798, p. 56, an instance of a family of children standing single in this respect, among a whole village, owing to the fortunate circumstance of their father being a man of more humanity than his neighbours. He did not attempt to restrain his children from going to search after nests, but he took frequent occasion to inculcate such lessons of humanity, as effectually prevented the barbarous custom of robbing them." This example is highly worth the imitation of mothers, fathers and tutors, since to teach human. ity would add dignity to their characters. We have a right to expect this, particularly from mothers, who feel, or ought to feel, what another may experience in the deprivation or massacre of their offspring. But this tendency to cruelty, so dreadful in its effects, "grows with the growth of children, and strengthens with their strength, "till by the arrival of maturity, they have become insensible to those' 'gener. ous and mild perceptions which should dignify man.

"I believe, (says Mr. Ireland in his illustration of Hogarth's Pictures on Cruelty) what are called vicious propensities have their origin in improper education. "Give me a blow, that I may beat it," is an infant's first lesson. Thus early taught, by -proxy, can it excite a wonder if a spirit of revenge becomes a part of it's nature? His first reading is The Seven Champions, and Guy Earl of Warwick'; and tho' he can kill neither dragon nor dun cow, his admiration of those who could, induces him to exert himself in the extirpation of beetles and earth

worms. Quitting the mother for the master, he peruses histories of what are called heroes, great in proportion to the nations they have depopulated. The annals of his own country furnish him with a list of Barons bold, who led armies of vassals to the field of death; where brothers butchered brothers; and the arrow, sped by a son, pierced the heart of his father, to determine the tincture of a tyrant's rose!

Young master must have a horse to ride, and a favourite spaniel to accompany him; these alternately commit what he denominates faults, and because they are his, he is allowed to chastise them as he thinks proper. If the young gentleman be heir to a great estate, the domestics look up to him as their future master, and, if any of them have better dispo. sitions, they dare not displease him; but they are generally his voluntary tutors in inhumanity; by them he is soon initiated into the "art of ingeniously tormenting" all sorts of animals. In this manner is completed a character which is incapable of shame or humanity. So well is he taught to laugh at distress and misery, even among his own species, that the act of driving his phaton over an old woman, too decrepid to move out of the way, becomes an achievement fit to boast of and a subject of mirth! In some places, children are taught to call red butterflies, soldiers; and white ones, rebels. This weak and absurd folly, however, implants in children an inclination for persecution. Prejudice and error have contributed largely towards the persecution of animals. Toads, and the whole tribe of serpents and lizards, are treated as common enemies, because they are thought to be poisonous, and children are generally encouraged to destroy them. Every reasonable parent will, however, allow, that

such opinions are wrong, when it is recollected that the latest, and best informed, naturalists have declared that the viper is the only poisonous animal existing in this country.

The hedge-hog is ridiculously charged with suck. ing cows, and injuring their udders, whereas a slight inspection into the form of it's mouth will discover that it's smallness renders the charge false and the action impracticable.

Mr. Locke says, "People teach children to strike, and laugh when they give pain, or see others injured; and they have the examples of many about them, to confirm them in it. All the entertainment and subject of history is fighting and killing; and the honour and renown which is bestowed on conquer. ors (who for the most part are the great butchers of mankind) farther mislead youth, who are thus taught to think that slaughter is the great business of mankind; and the most heroic of virtues. In this manner unnatural cruelty is implanted, and what humanity abhors custom and habit tolerate. Such propensities ought, on the contrary, to be watched and early remedies applied.-On Education, sec. 116.

To check these malign propensities becomes more necessary, from the general tendency of our amusements. Most of our rural, and even infantine sports are savage and ferocious. They arise from the terror, misery, and death of helpless animals. Children in the nursery are taught to impale butterflies or cock.chaffers. As years and strength increase, their sports consist in pursuing, punishing, torturing, and murdering all animals weaker, more defenceless, more innocent, or less vicious than themselves. Thus educated, or permitted to imbibe dispositions and hab. its from their play-fellows, without remonstrance or

correction, it need not become a subject of wonder that children quarrel and fight with one another, and that the vanquished party is further maltreated and plundered. Dogs receive a disposition to attack each other from this propensity in the brutes of human kind, who teach and urge them to that practice. The school-boy's delight is to prowl among the hedges and woods and to "rob the poor bird of it's young." Grown a gentle angler, he snares the scaly fry or scatters leaden death among the feathered tenants of the air. Ripened to man, he becomes a mighty hunter, grows enamoured of the chase, and crimsons his spurs in the sides of a generous courser, whose wind he breaks in pursuit of an inoffensive deer, or timid hare.

Hogarth, who was a most accurate and keen observer of human actions, makes the career of the hero of his four stages of cruelty, to commence with the barbarous treatment of animals, and conclude with murder and the gallows."

"I remember once, says Mr. Ireland, seeing a prac. tical lesson of humanity given to a little chimneysweeper, which had, I dare say, a better effect than a volume of ethics. The young soot-merchant was seated upon an alehouse bench, and had in one hand his brush, and in the other a hot buttered roll. While exercising his white masticators, with a perseverance that evinced the highest gratification, he observed a dog lying on the ground near him. The repetition of poor fellow! poor fellow! in a good. natured tone, brought the quadruped from his resting place: he wagged his tail, looked up with an eye of humble entreaty, and in that universal language which all nations understand, asked for a morsel of bread.

The sooty tyrant held his remnant of roll

towards him, but on the dog gently offering to take it, struck him with his brush so violent a blow across the nose as nearly broke the bone. A gentleman who had been, unperceived, a witness to the whole transaction, put a sixpence between his finger and thumb, and beckoned this little monarch of May-day to an opposite door. The lad grinned at the silver, but on stretching out his hand to receive it, the teacher of humanity gave him such a rap upon the knuc. kles with a cane, as made them ring. His hand tingling with pain, and tears running down his cheeks, he cried what is that for? "To make you feel," was the reply. How do you like a blow and a disappointment? the dog endured both; had you given him a piece of bread, this sixpence should have been the reward; you gave him a blow; I have returned it, and will put the money in my pocket.". Such demonstrative lessons would undoubtedly have the most salutary effect, if inflicted on children who are inattentive to the power of reason and persuasion. A few hairs jerked from the head of a boy, while tearing a fly piece-meal, attended with an explana tion of the infinitely more intolerable pain of tearing from the body a limb, and that the divine precept of doing as we would be done unto, should extend to the minutest link of being, has frequently had the most durable effects.

The kindness which mankind condescend to shew to animals will often be found to originate in whim and caprice. Ladies are fond of lap-dogs, squirrels, parrots, monkeys, cats; and it sometimes happens that a sportsman's dog or horse are his bosom friends; but when the horse is grown old or disabled, and the dog has lost his scent or speed, the first is made a drudge, and the latter treated with cruelty and con.