Page:OntheConductofMantoInferiorAnimals.pdf/58

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BUTCHERY.
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much taller than the common ones, measuring nearly three feet four inches, to the top of the head, exclusively of the horns, covered with hair, every where strong and coarse, but long and shaggy at the mane. The lad in attendance rode upon his back, across the room, without any apparent inconvenience. At the sight of this I could not help reflecting that by domesticating the sheep, and applying it to our cruel purposes, we load it with fat till the slightest exertion puts it out of breath; so that we even render it liable to roll over and be cast, as the shepherds call it, there often to lie upon it's back till the crows pick it's eyes out, or until it perishes from inability to regain it's legs. It is indeed no just matter of surprise that the domesticated sheep can never recover it's wild state. After robbing the unfortunate creature of it's own warm clothing, it is kept ready for the knife in a state of incipient rot, and then we exclaim, what a dull, sluggish, stupid looking animal is this! I shudder at the thought which forces itself on my mind. Tell me, reader, is that originally noble creature man, more, or is he less deteriorated?"

Gibbon, speaking of the tartarean shepherds, says, "the ox or the sheep are slaughtered by the same hand from which they are accustomed to receive their daily food; and the bleeding limbs are served, with very little preparation, on the table of their unfeeling murderer." This assersion is applicable to almost every servant in a large english farmhouse. A tolerably correct conjecture may be formed of the enormous carnivorous propensity of the English, from the daily devastations which are uniformly committed on the various kinds of domestic animals in London. Lord Townsend in the year 1725, assured the King of Prussia, at Herenhauscn, which is
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