hets are more or less fussy, and this old gentleman seems to have
been one of the more fussy ones. Being maintained at the public expense,
he had ample leisure, and not content with limiting his attention to the
rights of animals, he wanted to reduce right and wrong to rules, to
consider the foundations of duty and of good and evil, and otherwise to
put all sorts of matters on a logical basis, which people whose time is
money are content to accept on no basis at all.

As a matter of course, the basis on which he decided that duty could
alone rest was one that afforded no standing-room for many of the old-
established habits of the people. These, he assured them, were all
wrong, and whenever any one ventured to differ from him, he referred the
matter to the unseen power with which he alone was in direct
communication, and the unseen power invariably assured him that he was
right. As regards the rights of animals he taught as follows:-

"You know," he said, "how wicked it is of you to kill one another. Once
upon a time your fore-fathers made no scruple about not only killing, but
also eating their relations. No one would now go back to such detestable
practices, for it is notorious that we have lived much more happily since
they were abandoned. From this increased prosperity we may confidently
deduce the maxim that we should not kill and eat our fellow-creatures. I
have consulted the higher power by whom you know that I am inspired, and
he has assured me that this conclusion is irrefragable.

"Now it cannot be denied that sheep, cattle, deer, birds, and fishes are
our fellow-creatures. They differ from us in some respects, but those in
which they differ are few and secondary, while those that they have in
common with us are many and essential. My friends, if it was wrong of
you to kill and eat your fellow-men, it is wrong also to kill and eat
fish, flesh, and fowl. Birds, beasts, and fishes, have as full a right
to live as long as they can unmolested by man, as man has to live
unmolested by his neighbours. These words, let me again assure you, are
not mine, but those of the higher power which inspires me.

"I grant," he continued, "that animals molest one another, and that some
of them go so far as to molest man, but I have yet to learn that we
should model our conduct on that of the lower animals. We should
endeavour, rather, to instruct them, and bring them to a better mind. To
kill a tiger, for example,