Canning--_No_! Unamiable and
unconciliating monsters! The wildest and most ferocious inhabitants of
the desert may be reclaimed from their savage nature, and taught to
become the peaceful denizens of a menagerie--but ye are altogether
untractable and untameable. Gratitude and sense of shame, the better
parts of instinct, have never yet interposed their sacred influence to
prevent the commission of one treacherous or unbecoming action of yours.
The holy rites of hospitality are by you abused and set at naught; and
the very roof which shelters you is desecrated with the marks of your
irreverential contempt for all things human and divine. Would that--(and
the wish is expressed more in sorrow than in anger)--would that your
entire species were condensed into one enormous bluebottle, that we
might crush you all at a single swoop!
Many, calling themselves philanthropists and Christians, have omitted to
squash a fly when they had an opportunity of so doing; nay, some of
these people have even been known to go the length of writing verses on
the occasion, in which they applaud themselves for their own humane
disposition, and congratulate the object of their mistaken mercy on its
narrow escape from impending fate.
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