ure
is supposed to be concentrated in the one word, _Veal_. All last night
the air reverberated with the agonized mooings of a bereaved cow in a
neighboring pasture, and with the earliest dawn there she stood forlorn,
pressing her aching breast against the cold, dew-damp gate, and gazing
with mournful longing up the road last trodden by her darling's
lingering feet. But it is all right, because--_veal_! A hen may be
suddenly wrested from her infant brood and brought back from her private
nest into the dreary phalanstery, because Mr. Worldly Wiseman thinks
the laying of eggs a more important thing than the cultivation of
domestic virtues. To the exigencies of "profit" everything else must
give way. The result can but be deleterious. The peach-bloom of
sensibility is presently rubbed off by constant trituration of harsh
utilities. Only yesterday I received an invitation from a gentleman of
standing and character to visit a famous farm, and one of the
inducements expressly held out was the pleasure of seeing a hundred
sheep from Canada, with a hundred little lambs, all their respective
little tails cut off short. What a request was there, my countrymen! For
why were those little tails cut off, in the first place? and if they
were cut off, why should any humane person be invited to see such a
spectacle of man's rapacity? It must have been sheer wantonness. You
sometimes prune away sundry branches of a tree, to make the rest of it
grow better; but will there be any more to a leg of mutton because it
had no tail? No, Sir. When I go a-sheep-gazing, I want to see the sheep
walking about with dignity and comfort, and coming home, as little
Bo-Peep wanted hers, bringing their tails behind them.

What we can we do to stem this dreadful tide of demoralization. We have
never set our hearts upon taking the first prize at any fair for
anything. We do not count upon deriving great pecuniary strength from
contact with our mother Earth. But upon this one thing we have
determined,--that every creature on our plantation, which is allowed to
live at all, shall live as far as possible in the enjoyment of every
bounty which Nature bestowed upon him. No dumb life shall be the worse
for falling into our hands. We do not disdain to study the nature of our
calves, nor to gratify their innocent whims. One refuses milk and
chooses water: water is always provided. Another exults in apples,
bread, and fried potatoes, and eats them from your hand with