Let flighty philosophers frolic as they list with the flimsy phantasies no optics save their own can spy--let political economists prate about public problems, till other people’s pates are nearly as addled as their own--let flaming patriots propound and placid placemen promise this, that, and t’other, as grievous burdens or great concessions; but let men of sense give heed to things of substance--let them exclaim with me, “Out upon all abstract gammon--out upon all squabbling about what we can only hear, but neither see nor feel, taste nor smell--bodily boons--real redress--and first and foremost, ‘to the lamp-post’ with the curs!” I have suffered more at their teeth, both in blood and broad-cloth, than all the benefactions I have ever received at the hands of any government would balance. The inviolable independence of British subjects, forsooth! the parental guardianship of the constitution, the security for life and person--faugh!--away with the big inanities, so long as a peaceful pedestrian cannot take an airing along a highway, much less adventure on a devious ramble, without exposing person and personalities to the cruel mercies of a tribe of half-starved tykes issuing from every cabin, scrambling over every half-door, and almost throttling themselves in their emulous ambition to be the first to tatter the ill-starred wight who has stumbled on their haunts. Let no one urge in their behalf that they are faithful to the misguided men who own them: so much the worse, since in their small system, fidelity to one must needs manifest itself in malice, hatred, and uncharitableness to every creature else, dead or alive. No, there is no redeeming trait--they are _curs_, essentially biting, barking, cantankrous, crabbed, sneaking, snarling, treacherous, bullying, cowardly _curs_, and nothing else. This, under all circumstances, I undertake to maintain against all gainsayers, though at the same time I am free to confess that I write under considerable excitement, having just returned from the country (whither--besotted mortal not to be content with the flag way of a street, and the scenery of brick and mortar--I had repaired, forsooth, for air, exercise, and rural sketching) with a couple of new coats, to say nothing of trousers, curtailed beyond recovery, a bandaged shin smarting beyond description, and a host of horrid hydrophobic forebodings consequent thereon. It chanced that in an evil hour I made an engagement with an ailing friend, whose house was situate in what I may emphatically term a most _canine_ locality, which constrained me to make several calls upon him. Unhappily it was only approachable by one road, the sides of which were here and there dotted with a clutch of cabins, in each of which was maintained a standing force of the aforesaid pests. This ambushed defile, about three miles in length, dire necessity compelled me to traverse thrice, and never did general more considerately undertake a march through a hostile