Legislative discussion and interference have raised a feeling of
kindness towards the brute creation which slumbered and slept in our
forefathers. Formerly, the costermonger was accustomed to make wounds
for the express purpose of producing torture. He prepared to drive an
ass, that had not been driven, with his knife. On each side of the back
bone, at the lower end, just above the tail, he made an incision of two
or three inches in length through the skin, and beat into these
incisions with his stick till they became open wounds, and so remained,
while the ass lived to be driven to and from market, or through the
streets of the metropolis. A costermonger, now, would shrink from this,
which was a common practice between the years 1790 and 1800. The present
itinerant venders of apples, and other fruit, abstain from wanton
barbarity, while coachmen and carmen are punished for it under Mr.
Martin’s act. This gentleman’s humanity, though sometimes eccentric, is
ever active; and, when judiciously exercised, is approved by natural
feelings, and supported by public opinion.
A correspondent has pleasantly thrown together some amusing citations
respecting the ass. It is a rule with the editor of the _Every-Day Book_
not to alter communications, or he would have turned one expression, in
the course of the subjoined paper, which seems to bear somewhat
ludicrously upon the interference of the member for Galway, in behalf of
that class of animals which have endured more persecution than any in
existence, except, perhaps, our fellow human-beings, the Jews.