THE
WANDERINGS
OF THE
IMAGINATION.
BY MRS. GOOCH.
(Continued from [page 379].)
FOURTH WANDERING.
There are few subjects which deserve a closer investigation of the legislation of the legislative power, and which is more neglected, than the excessive cruelty that is exercised in this metropolis over unhappy, and devoted animals. As they have no law to protect them, they are doubly entitled to the attention of Humanity. It is scarcely possible to walk through the city (London) without having one’s feelings tortured by the abandoned race of butcher’s boys, and drovers. I could mention many, I might say daily instances of what I have been painfully compelled to witness, whenever I was led into that part of the town. One only I will mention, which strongly evinces philanthropy on one hand, and infamy on the other.
These contrasted practices belonging to the same class of people, the lowest order, of the vulgar, are convincing proofs, that Education has less to do with the formation of our ideas, and the realization of our actions, than Nature. She governs the human system, while she forms it; and however villainy may be glossed over by the specious arts of accomplished deception in splendid life, or worth may lie concealed under the thick shade of retirement, the innate sentiment still “grows with our growth,” and effectually steers us throughout the course of our existence.
It is not three weeks since I was going up Snow-hill, and was met by a number of sheep, followed by one of these imps of the Devil that I have mentioned. As I was standing by, to let them pass, I was struck by the voice of an old woman, whose “tattered garment spoke variety of wretchedness,” and who, (to continue the simile) was exactly what Fancy pictures Otway’s witch to have been. She was mourning over one of these wretched animals, who had sunk on its knees, exhausted by ill-usage and fatigue. One horn was plucked out by the roots; its legs were lacerated, and streaming with blood, which issued from the nostrils, while the man (why I am forced to call him so) was employing all his strength in belabouring, with a thick stick, its agonized sides!—The old woman was remonstrating, with all the eloquence of genuine humanity. It was a foreign language to a wretch of this description, and he answered her in his own; while I walked on; unable to bear the sight before me, or to attend to the impious execrations of the infernal cause of it.