some day afterwards, advance cautiously to the placet and put over them a hand-net. In this manner they frequently take both the parents; or, by taking one of them, they generally obtain the other with a gun! Such is the progress which men make in barbarity, while they are complimented as ingenious! They may indeed be ingenious, but they are ingenious in crime, and merit the title of Ingenious Monsters.
Anatomists. Among the inferior professors of medical knowledge, is a race of wretches whose lives are only distinguished by varieties of cruelty. Their favourite amusement is to nail dogs to tables and open them alive; to try how long life may be continued in various degrees of mutilation, or with the excision or laceration of the vital parts; to examine whether burning irons are felt more acutely by the bone or tendon; and whether the more lasting agonies areproduced by poison forced into the mouth or injected into the veins. It is not without reluctance that I offend the sensibility of the tender mind, but since they are continually published with ostentation, let me be allowed to mention them, since I mention them with abhorrence. Mead has invidiously remarked of Woodward, that he gathered shells and stones, and intended to pass for a philosopher. With pretensions much less reasonable, the anatomical novice tears out the living bowels of an animal, and styles himself physician!
What is alleged in defence of these hateful practices, every one knows; but the truth is, that by knives, fire, and poison, knowledge is not always sought, and is very seldom attained. The experiments which have been tried, are tried again; he that burned an animal with irons yesterday, will be willing to amuse himself with burning another to-morrow. I
