CRUELTY TO ANIMALS.--Though civilization may in some degree abate the native ferocity which prompts men to torture the brute creation, it can never quite extirpate it. The most polished are not ashamed to be pleased with scenes of barbarity, and, to the disgrace of human nature, to dignify them with the name of sports. They arm cocks with artificial weapons, which nature had kindly denied to their malevolence, and with shouts of applause and triumph see them plunge them into each other’s hearts; they view with delight the trembling deer and defenceless hare, flying for hours in the utmost agonies of terror and despair, and at last sinking under fatigue, devoured by their merciless pursuers. They see with joy the beautiful pheasant and harmless partridge drop from their flight, weltering in their blood, or perhaps perishing with wounds and hunger, under the cover of some friendly thicket to which they have in vain retreated for safety; they triumph over the unsuspecting fish, whom they have decoyed by an insidious pretence of feeding, and drag him from his native element by a hook fixed to and tearing out his entrails; and to add to all this, they spare neither labour nor expense to preserve and propagate these innocent animals, for no other, and but to multiply the objects of their persecution. What name should we bestow on a superior being whose whole endeavours were employed and whose whole pleasure consisted in terrifying, ensnaring, tormenting, and destroying mankind?--whose superior faculties were exerted in fomenting animosity amongst them, in contriving engines of destruction, and inciting them to use them in maiming and murdering each other?--whose power over them was employed in assisting the rapacious, deceiving the simple, and oppressing the innocent?--who, without provocation or advantage, should continue from day to day, void of all pity and remorse, thus to torment mankind for diversion, and at the same time endeavour with the utmost care to preserve their lives, and to propagate their species, in order to increase the number of victims devoted to his malevolence, and be delighted in proportion to the miseries which he occasioned? I say, what name detestable enough could we find for such a being? Yet if we impartially consider the case, and our intermediate situation, we must acknowledge, that, with regard to inferior animals, just such a being is a sportsman.--_Disquisitions on Several Subjects, by Soame Jenyns._ HISTORY OF PAPER-HANGINGS. Abridged from a paper by Mr Crace, read before the Royal Institute of Architects.