tempt. When a few exceptions, chiefly of this kind, are made, the conduct of man appears a continued scene of oppression, and the existence of his unfortunate vassals reduced to misery. Nor does the ferocity of man stop here, their agonies, whether accidental or inflicted, become his diversion and sport. Man acts as a lion, a tyger, or a swine; delighting in carnage, oppression, hunting, killing and devour. ing not only those of his own species, but of every other kind of animal. The elements abound with his snares and cruelties. The earth, the air, the sea, cannot preserve their innocent inhabitants from his persecutions and outrages; but all nature is ransacked to gratify his insatiate mind and devouring paunch. Many apparent acts of humanity may be traced to this source. Were a person to see a partridge drown. ing, he would not rescue it for the sake of preserving it's life, but for the sake of eating it.

Let no one say these are silly unfounded charges; they are daily practiced and within the notice of the most superficial observer, even in a country which boasts of knowledge and morality, of civilization and refinement! The complexion of cannibalism is strong and prevailing. Take one instance out of a thousand that could be produced in proof of this disposition being universally admitted as inherent and honourable. "Last week a gentleman of Lewes shot at and wounded a hare, which he killed with the butt-end of his gun, and put it into his bag. As he was pursuing his sport, some considerable time after, he felt a kicking motion against his side, which led him to suspect the hare he had killed was with young, and near her time of littering. He accordingly cut her open, and took from her three young ones, which he preserved alive and reared,

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till lately, when one of them leaped from a box wherein it was kept, and killed itself. The other two are strong and lively, and will, no doubt, be reared to the age PROPER FOR THE SPIT, "-Bell's Weekly Messenger, Sep. 21, 1801.

Maugre the wretched depravities of mankind, maugre bad education, and corrupt example, the crying voice of conscience cannot be subdued. This off. spring of reason, continues to goad the human heart, when it departs from acting right and doing justice. Even among soldiers, accustomed to hack their brethren to pieces, occasionally impulses of humanity have appeared. The mind of Stedman was not formed for the business in which he engaged, of suppressing the revolted negroes of Surinam. Instances of strong sensibility appear in the "Account" which he published. One day, he was amused by a group of monkies, when one of them, says he, 66 seeing me near the river in a canoe, the creature made a halt from skipping after his companions, and being perched upon a branch, which hung over the water, examined me with attention and the strongest marks of curiosity, no doubt taking me for a giant of his own species; while he chattered prodigiously, and kept dancing and shaking the bough upon which he rested, with incredible strength and agility. At this time I laid my piece to my shoulder, and brought him down from the tree into the stream; but may I never again be witness to such a scene! the miserable animal was not dead, but mortally wounded. I seized him by the tail, and taking him in both hands, to end his torment, swung him round, and hit his head against the side of the canoe; but the poor creature, still continuing alive, and looking at me in the most affecting manner that can be con

ceived, I knew no other way of ending this murder than holding him under water till he was drowned, while my heart, sickened on his account; for his dying little eyes still continued to follow me, with seeming reproach, till their light gradually forsook them, and the wretched animal expired." What could induce Stedman to lay his piece, almost involuntarily, to his shoulder, when he saw the inoffensive animal, amused; what but depraved habit?

My friend C, attacks, with fury, the wretch, wherever he finds him, who is dealing out ancifully blows and urging his animal: beyond it's strength. › C——,” say I, "how much are you before me in making the monsters feel; and how much behind, in not refusing to eat the limbs of your fellow creatures." You know," replied be, "that I would not dare to be a beast of prey, but that my wife, will not consent to my leaving off eating animal food; she calls me "little dear," " and tells me I am : conceited." "Ah! C," I add, "how unfortunate it is, that your wife is not conceited too!"; ad

Under an improved system of education, children will be brought up to a vegetable regimen, as being the most natural to man. As vegetable diet has a necessary connection with many virtues, and excludes no one, it must be of importance to accustom young people to it, seeing it's influence, both in respect to beauty of person and tranquillity of soul, has been confirmed by accurate observations and stubborn facts.

If parents knew the blessing of never hearing their children restless at night, or of seeing one month, or year of vigour, uniformly succeed another, they could not hesitate a moment. The health of my children,

of

says Mr. Newton, may be verified by the inspection of any stranger who will take the trouble. And sure. ly it may be presumed that other children will be no less exempt from violent attacks, after two or three years perseverance in a similar plan; that their forms will expand, their strength increase, in a very different ratio from the ordinary one: that the little family perturbations occasioned by the falls children, which are in great measure attributable to the want of tone in their fibre, will be almost un. known; that as the fracture of limbs, like the rupture of blood vessels, is more owing to the state of the body than to the violence of the shock encoun. tered, they will be infinitely less liable to such dis tressing accidents; that their irritability and consequently their objurgatory propensities, will gradually subside; that they will become not only more robust, but more beautiful; that their carriage will be erect, their step firm; that their developement at a critical period of youth, the prematuracy of which has been considered an evil, will be retarded: above all, the danger of being deprived of them will, in every way, diminish; while by these light repasts their hilarity will be augmented, and their intellects cleared, in a degree which shall astonishingly illustrate the delightful effects of this regimen."Return to Nature, p. 74.

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"The children of our family can each of them eat a dozen or eighteen walnuts for supper without the most trifling indigestion; an experiment which those who feed their children in the usual manner would consider it adventurous to attempt." Idem,

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80 Examples have the most powerful influence in rousing either the good or bad sympathies; in com

parison of which, precepts are of little avail. The constant habit, therefore, of destroying animated beings, both for food and for amusement, is one of the most fertile sources of the ferocity and brutality of the human character. Hence we see the moral benefit of any diet, which would diminish, in any considerable degree, this baneful example.-Anon.

Fortunately, a few animals are indebted to the superstitions of mankind for their happiness. The good people of Sweden say that three sins will be forgiven, if a person replace on it's feet a cock-chaffer which has happened to fall on it's back.-Sparrman's Voyage, vol. 1. p. 211. Travellers say, that in Paraguay the married people will not eat sheep, lest they should produce a generation of children covered with wool.

ON THE WANT OF A NATIONAL PROTECTION OF ANIMALS.

We have said that animals should be protected by the legislature, but there exists no statute which punishes cruelty to animals, simply as such, and without taking in the consideration of it as an injury to property. "Had I any influence in the proposal or fabrication of laws," says Miss Williams, "I should be tempted to leave the human race a while to it's own good government, and form a code for the protection of animals. In other countries, laws are in. stituted for their protection; and fines, imprisonments, and even exile, are pronounced against wretch. es, who, in the rage of passion, or the wantonness of power, have forgotten the relation that exists between themselves and the objects of their cruelty. At present it is the mode to descant on the superior progress we have made in civilization, beyond that which was