Page:Colymbia (1873).djvu/230

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224
COLYMBIA.

offending animals. But our task is still incomplete. The ignorant and prejudiced promoters of this cruelty are still in a majority, and as long as I have strength remaining and a voice to plead the cause of the helpless and oppressed, you will ever find me in the foremost ranks of those who would strike down oppressors and discomfit the schemes of our ruthless and unscrupulous adversaries."

In something like this strain he continued to hold forth for a long time, to the great satisfaction of his auditors, who seemed to find an ample reward for their trouble and expense, in hearing their favourite topic lauded; and especially, as I thought, in hearing those who differed from them soundly rated.

In private life, this ferocious rhetorician was a mild and amiable man, who would not willingly do the slightest injury to those he so vehemently denounced, and with whom, I was assured, he lived on terms of perfect cordiality.