This is what _I_ say: I want to see men do it. I should like to get up a Happy Family of men, and show ’em. I should like to put the Rajah Brooke, the Peace Society, Captain Aaron Smith, several Malay Pirates, Doctor Wiseman, the Reverend Hugh Stowell, Mr. Fox of Oldham, the Board of Health, all the London undertakers, some of the Common (very common _I_ think) Council, and all the vested interests in the filth and misery of the poor, into a good-sized cage, and see how _they_’d get on. I should like to look in at ’em through the bars, after they had undergone the training I have undergone. You wouldn’t find Sir Peter Laurie ‘putting down’ Sanitary Reform then, or getting up in _that_ vestry, and pledging his word and honour to the non-existence of Saint Paul’s Cathedral, I expect! And very happy _he_’d be, wouldn’t he, when he couldn’t do that sort of thing? I have no idea of you lords of the creation coming staring at me in this false position. Why don’t you look at home? If you think I’m fond of the dove, you’re very much mistaken. If you imagine there is the least good will between me and the pigeon, you never were more deceived in your lives. If you suppose I wouldn’t demolish the whole Family (myself excepted), and the cage too, if I had my own way, you don’t know what a real Raven is. But if you _do_ know this, why am _I_ to be picked out as a curiosity? Why don’t you go and stare at the Bishop of Exeter? ’Ecod, he’s one of our breed, if any body is! Do you make me lead this public life because I seem to be what I ain’t? Why, I don’t make half the pretences that are common among you men! You never heard _me_ call the sparrow my noble friend. When did _I_ ever tell the Guinea-Pig that he was my Christian brother? Name the occasion of my making myself a party to the ‘sham’ (my friend Mr. Carlyle will lend me his favourite word for the occasion) that the cat hadn’t really her eye upon the mouse! Can _you_ say as much? What about the last Court Ball, the next Debate in the Lords, the last great Ecclesiastical Suit, the next long assembly in the Court Circular? I wonder you are not ashamed to look me in the eye! I am an independent Member—of the Happy Family; and I ought to be let out. I have only one consolation in my inability to damage anything, and that is that I hope I am instrumental in propagating a delusion as to the character of Ravens. I have a strong impression that the sparrows on our beat are beginning to think they may trust a Raven. Let ’em try! There’s an uncle of mine, in a stable-yard down in Yorkshire, who will very soon undeceive any small bird that may favour him with a call.