Emerson
MERCY TO ANIMALS
I would not enter on my list of friends
(Though graced with polished manners and fine sense,
Yet wanting sensibility) the man
Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm.
An inadvertent step may crush the snail
That crawls at evening in the public path;
But he that has humanity, forewarned,
Will tread aside, and let the reptile live.
The creeping vermin, loathsome to the sight,
And charged perhaps with venom, that intrudes
A visitor unwelcome into scenes
Sacred to neatness and repose, the alcove,
The chamber, or refectory, may die.
A necessary act incurs no blame.
The sum is this: if man's convenience, health,
Or safety interfere, his rights and claims
Are paramount, and must extinguish theirs.
Else they are all—the meanest things that are—
As free to live, and to enjoy that life,
As God was free to form them at the first,
Who in His sovereign wisdom made them all.
Ye, therefore, who love mercy, teach your sons
To love it, too.
Cowper
THE UNITED EMPIRE LOYALISTS
The Americans inaugurated their Declaration of Independence by enacting that all the United Empire Loyalists—that is the adherents to connection with the mother country—were rebels and traitors; they followed the recognition of Independence by England with an order exiling such adherents from their territories. But while this policy depleted the United States of some of their best blood, it laid the foundation of the settlement and the institutions of the country which has since become the great, free, and prosperous Dominion of Canada.