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ure of breaking all the legs from off all the quadrupeds in Noah's ark pales into insignificance beside the rapture of pulling pussy's tail, and half blinding a living terrier. The cat and dog endure from the infant the tortures of Damien without complaint, and purr or wag their tail at each fresh infliction as a new manifestation of regard. Vivisection is a trifle compared with some of the unwitting cruelties of the nursery; but the victims seem to understand that their pains are not intended, and it would be well if a like self-sacrificing enthusiasm could be fostered in the scientific laboratory.

That people do keep pets and do misuse them is a plain and unquestionable fact. Why they keep them is another and much more difficult question. Some, it is true, have a dislike to the destruction of animal life. Cardinal Bellarmine would not disturb the fleas which got their livelihood in his famous beard. Others, again, have been driven to love a swallow from the mere loneliness of prison life, and the only reason for doubting the truth of the legend which connects the name of Bruce with a spider is that similar tales have been told of other famous men. The story of a Lady Berkeley who insisted on keeping her merlins to moult in her bedchamber, and her husband's consequent displeasure, occurs among the annals of the fifteenth century. Little dogs fig ure on brasses; and the names of "Terri," "Jakke," and "Bo" have come down to us as memorials of pets beloved five hundred years ago. Cowper, besides his hares, petted all kinds of animals, and remonstrated in verse with his spaniel for killing a fledgling. Oldys apostrophized a fly, and Burns a mouse. We think it was Carnot, in the Reign of Terror, that lavished caresses on his dog, while he sent hundreds of human victims to the slaughter. In fact, there are few people come to mature years who at some time of their life have not loved a dear gazelle or other domesticated animal, and been gladdened by its affectionate eye. A taste which is so peculiarly human may be humanizing if properly directed. The child, indeed, will rob a nest to satisfy its longing for a pet. But it is easy to demonstrate the cruelty of interfering with natural laws, and the speedy death of the half-fledged nestling demonstrates clearly enough the futility of the childish aspirations. The sympathies of Bill Sykes, callous as he was, were awakened towards his dog, and even Charon may be supposed occasionally to bestow a friendly pat on one of the heads

of Cerberus. Although it has often been remarked that love of the horse accompa nies, if it does not cause, the degradation of many a man, yet it would be hard to ascribe the iniquities of a blackleg to any true love of the animal on which he lays his money. Doubtless the horse of Calig ula preferred his oats ungilt, and it is the uncertainty of racing rather than any fault of the racer that attracts rogues to Newmarket and Epsom. A horse would run quite as well, the race would be even more often to the swift, if betting could be abolished. And our prize costermongers and cabmen find kindness to their animals, like honesty, the best policy. The donkey that is starved and beaten seldom favours his driver with more than a spasmodic gallop, while the sleek ass we now occasionally notice in our streets draws more than his own weight of heavy men at a cheerful and willing trot. The principle on which pets are kept is, however, sometimes difficult to find. We were all horrified lately to read of an old lady who starved a houseful of cats, and every Indian traveller tells shocking tales of the cruelty of the Hindoo to the humpbacked cow which he worships as a divinity.

Cruelty to pets is only one aspect of the matter. There are people, especially in towns, whose kindness to their pets is exercised at the expense of their neighbours. So long as they are an amusement to their owners without being a nuisance to the public no one can complain. There are, it is true, crusty people who would like the world better if it contained neither kittens nor babies. But it cannot do real harm to anybody that an old lady should turn rabbits loose in her garden in order to reduce the excessive corpulence of her darling pugs by a little wholesome coursing. It is good for her pets, and does not hurt the rabbits. Nor does it injure the public that twice a year she finds herself under the necessity of posting to the seaside in order to give her favourites the constitutional refreshment of a few walks on the shore. She must post all the way, because it would be impossible to let them enter the cruel den set apart for mere dogs on the railway, and the company will not let her hire a first-class compartment for their use. Even the collier who feeds his bull-pup on beefsteaks and milk, at the cost of half-starving his wife and children, may at least plead that he does not interfere with the comfort or convenience of his neighbours. But it is a little odd that there is no way of restraining him if he would go further. He may, as far as the present state of the

law can control him, cause his dog to be a | ates an unusual noise and disturbance in nuisance and annoyance of the worst kind the night-time" is guilty of a nuisance; to all who live within hearing; yet it is but it makes no provision for cases in apparently impossible to interfere with which the noise is produced without the him. It may be right enough that a man intervention of the horn, and apparently should be free to make the lives of his does not forbid even a "noise and disturbwife, his children, and his servants as mis-ance," provided only it be usual. True, a erable as he pleases, but it does seem civil action may be brought against the strange that he may extend his attention owner of the animal making the noise, if to his neighbours with equal impunity. the sufferer has been injured in the pursuit The general public, and especially that of his lawful calling or occupation; but, as considerable section of it which consists he probably carries on his occupation of helpless invalids, have no remedy miles away in the quiet recesses of the against a crowing cock or a barking dog. city, and is chiefly employed at home in In extreme cases it is possible that a phy- what appears to be the unlawful occupasician may be able for a time to abate such tion of resting himself, he has no ground a nuisance as being dangerous to his pa- for action. We have some imperfect sort tient's life; but there seems to be no re- of protection against brass bands and dress unless in cases of life and death. barrel-organs; why not against singingIn London a sufferer from such a com- birds, which might, as in "Charles O'Malplaint as chronic neuralgia may be kept in ley," be interpreted to include fighting torture all day by the barking of a dog in cocks? An extreme course alone is open the mews behind the house, and may pass to the sufferer at present. We are not a wakeful night owing to the howling of concerned to point it out too plainly. But, the same animal when chained up. There short of this desperate and certainly obis no choice but a change of residence, if jectionable remedy, there is no way, so far the invalid cannot bear the noise of cabs as we can see, of interfering with any deand milk-carts at the other side of the velopment, however disagreeable, of the house. An appeal to the police magistrate petting faculty. We may habitually wear only elicits another and perhaps more dis- cotton-wool in our ears, or, if we like it mal tale of suffering. His worship is but better, we may leave our house and take human, and he too has had days of illness another, but it is not clear we have any prolonged into weeks owing to the zoolog-power at present to prevent our next-door ical propensities of his neighbours. He can do nothing for himself, and nothing for the complainant. The law says nothing about such annoyances. It says that "every person who blows a horn or cre

neighbour from confining a pack of hounds in his stable, suspending a row of micaws on his balcony, keeping choruses of cats on his leads, and a laughing hyena in his back kitchen.

THE Russian correspondent of the Kölnische | was reason to know that the Afghans were Zeitung states that letters have reached St. Petersburg from members of the exploring expedition which was recently sent to the Attrek territory by the imperial government. They had advanced to Krasnowodsk, in Tschikishlau, without misadventure, and after a week's rest had proceeded along the Attrek to Schot, where it was proposed to take in new supplies. It was expected that the expedition would reach the mouth of the Attrek on their homeward passage about the end of last or the beginning of the present month. In General Lomakin's official report of the expedition, which came to St. Petersburg at the same time, it was announced that, although hitherto the Turkomans had everywhere shown themselves friendly towards the Russians, there

endeavouring to incite them to rise against the strangers and prevent their further advance. The Turkomans had on several occasions given information in regard to these attempts, which had enabled the general to seize two of the Afghan emissaries, who had been executed as spies. The Attrek expedition is regarded by the Russian government as especially important, from the information which it is anticipated it may supply in regard to the various degrees of practicability of the different routes leading to Merv, which is interesting as a central point of junction for many lines of way opening upon districts in which the British as well as the Russians are interested.

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V. IN A STUDIO. By W. W. Story. Part VI., Blackwood's Magazine, .
VI. WEST-INDIAN SUPERSTITIONS,

VIL HINDOO Proverbs,

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Through the valley runs a river, bright and rocky, cool and swift,

Where the wave with many a quiver, plays around the pine-tree's drift.

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From The Fortnightly Review.

THE TRUE EASTERN QUESTION.

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shed in the cause of wrong, whether it be shed in victory or in defeat, is matter for shame, and not for boasting. Thus I thought and spoke when they were but few- a few there always were-who thought and spoke with me. Now that the madness of the moment is past, now that we can see things by the light of twenty more years of experience, there are more who speak, there are many more who think, as a few of us thought and spoke during the national frenzy of the Russian war. But few or many it matters

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Alma and Inkerman England fought for wrong, as a generation before at Navarino she had fought for right. In 1827 we fought to free a nation from its tyrants, and the good work was called an toward event." In 1854 we fought to keep nations in their bondage, and it became the fashion to glory in our shame. We have again the choice of good or evil opened before us; we have again to choose between the precedent of the right eous act of which we were ashamed, and the precedent of the unrighteous act in which we gloried. We can again, if we will, do something, perhaps not by fighting but certainly in some other way, either for the cause of good or for the cause of evil. We may use such influence as we may have in the councils of Europe, either on behalf of the Turkish oppressor or on behalf of the victims who have at last turned against him: God grant that whatever we do, by act or by speech, it may be in the spirit of 1827, and not in the spirit of 1854.

A VISIT to the eastern coasts of the Hadriatic, planned long ago with objects bearing wholly on the history of past times, has lately given me a glimpse of a stirring piece of modern history, and has called my thoughts back to subjects which were more familiar to them twenty years back than they have been of late. I had longed for years to see the palace of Spalato, and the other wonders of the land which gave Rome so many of her greatest emperors. This year I had for the first time the op-not; truth is the same in either case. portunity of carrying out this wish of many years, and its carrying out in this particular year caused me to hear and see somewhat, not only of the palace at Spalato, but also of the revolt in Herzegovina. I was able to hear much of the matter from men familiar with the seat of war, and myself to get a glimpse, though only a glimpse, alike of enslaved Herzegovina and of unconquered Montenegro. These sights called up again old thoughts and old controversies. I have ever been one of those, a body sometime very few in number, who could not understand why our love of right and freedom, our hatred of wrong and oppression, should be bounded by the Hadriatic Sea. I could never understand why, while we denounced the oppression of the Austrian or the Russian, while we admired and sympathized with all who rose up against it, we were bound to uphold the far blacker oppression of the Turk, and to hurl every name of contempt and dislike at those who strove to shake off his yoke. I was one of those who raised their protest one and twenty years back, when we were entrapped by a crafty tyrant into waging war against a sovereign and a people who aside all associations which might sway had never wronged us, on behalf of the us in the matter, all considerations of past foulest fabric of tyranny on earth. history of religion or races or language, could see no glory, no wisdom, nothing we who spoke up for the oppressed against but the deepest national shame, in lending the oppressor were only speaking the lanthe arms of England to support the cause guage of simple right. We spoke on beof pope and Turk against the nations of half of the Greek and the Slave, only as Eastern Christendom. To me the names both we and others were wont to speak on of Alma, of Balaklava, and of Inkerman behalf of the Pole, the Lombard, and the are names of national humiliation. They Hungarian. We spoke on behalf of Chrisare records of blood shed by English tians under Mahometan oppressors as I hands in the cause of wrong; and blood trust we should have spoken on behalf of

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When I spoke and wrote about these matters twenty years back, the subject was one which had for me, as it still has, a twofold attraction. I felt that, setting

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