mal as if
it could not feel attachment to us. Some soldiers' wives used to pet my
little cub, even with tears in their eyes; and they told me the reason.
They said, that a short time before, the regiment to which they belonged
was quartered in Canada, and the soldiers had a bear, which they brought
up tame. This creature had a strange office--he was nurse to all the
babies in the barrack. So great was his love for them, that whenever the
mothers wanted to have their infants well taken care of, they would
place them under this animal's charge, who was delighted to smooth for
them the clean soft straw that they gave him; and whose tender care over
the babes was, they told me, the most beautiful thing ever seen. The
poor bear was always trying to help and oblige his friends; and on
washing days he had plenty of babies to mind, when the weather was mild
enough to have them out of doors; but one cold day they were all left
within, and the bear had nothing to do. So, seeing a woman leave her
washing-tub, which she had just filled with boiling water, he thought he
would do some of her work, and put his paws into it: the pain made him
snatch them out, and in so doing he upset the tub--all the scalding
water fell over him--and his agonies were such that, in mercy, some
soldier shot him dead at once. The women, when they told me this, sobbed
with grief, saying, "He was so kind to our babies! he would have died in
their defence, poor fellow!" I assure you, that when I see a poor bear
led through the streets, chained, beaten, and made to dance, as they
call it, which it is taught to do by cruel tortures, I always remember
this story; and think, how much love and gratitude might that miserable
sufferer feel, and how happy he might be made, if those who have taken
him from his native woods, and made a slave of him, would only show
mercy now instead of such barbarity! We often hear the expression, "As
savage as a bear;" but, I fear, in general, the man is the greater
savage of the two.

[Illustration]

MONKEYS are diverting creatures; and if you saw their fun and frolic
where they have liberty among the boughs of a tree, you would not know
how to leave off laughing. It is a different thing, however, to see
them also chained, and beaten, and with their limbs confined in
unnatural clothing, forced by fear, and hunger, and pain, to play the
antics which they would do of their own accord if treated differently. I
never could understand