"But for some better life, in what strange sort Were justice, mixed with mercy, dealt to these? Innocent slaves of sordid, guilty man, Poor unthanked drudges, toiling to his will, Pampered in youth, and haply starved in age, Obedient, faithful, gentle, though the spur, Wantonly cruel, or unsparing thong, Weal your galled hides, or your strained sinews crack Beneath the crushing load,--what recompense Can He who gave you being render you, If in the rank, full harvest of your griefs Ye sink annihilated, to the shame Of government unequal?--In that day When crime is sentenced, shall the cruel heart Boast uncondemned, because no tortured brute Stands there accusing? Shall the embodied deeds Of man not follow him, nor the rescued fly Bear its kind witness to the saving hand? Shall the mild Brahmin stand in equal sin Regarding nature's menials, with the wretch Who flays the moaning Abyssinian ox, Or roasts the living bird, or flogs to death The famishing pointer?--and must these again, These poor, unguilty, uncomplaining victims, Have no reward for life with its sharp pains?-- They have my suffrage: Nineveh was spared, Though Jonah prophesied its doom, for sake Of sixscore thousand infants, and 'much cattle;' And space is wide enough for every grain Of the broad sands that curb our swelling seas, Each separate in its sphere to stand apart As far as sun from sun; there lacks not room, Nor time, nor care, where all is infinite."--_Tupper._ THE REFORMED PRACTICE. SYNOPTICAL VIEW OF THE PROMINENT SYSTEMS OF MEDICINE. Some of our readers, especially the non-medical, may desire to know what the following remarks, which appear to apply generally to the human family, have to do with cattle doctoring. We answer them in the language of Professor Percival. "The object of the veterinary art is not only congenial with human medicine, but the very same paths which lead to a knowledge of the diseases of man, lead also to a knowledge of those of brutes. An accurate examination of the interior parts of their bodies; a studious survey of the arrangement, structure, use, connection, and relation of these parts, and of the laws by which they act; as also of the nature and properties of the various food and other agents which the earth so liberally provides for their support and cure,--these form, in a great measure, the sound and sure foundation of all medical science, whatever living individual animal be the subject of our consideration. Whether we prescribe for a man, horse, dog, or cat, the laws of the animal economy are the same; and one system, and that based upon established facts, is to guide our practice in all. "The theory of medicine in the human subject is the theory of medicine in the brute; it is the application of that theory--the practice alone--that is different.