expedition, with less expence, and the waste of water never felt; but,
by the introduction of twelve unnecessary locks, the company may
experience five plagues more than fell on Egypt.

The boats are nearly alike, constructed to fit the locks, carry about
twenty-five tons, and are each drawn by something like the skeleton of a
horse, covered with skin: whether he subsists upon the scent of the
water, is a doubt; but whether his life is a scene of affliction, is
not; for the unfeeling driver has no employment but to whip him from one
end of the canal to the other. While the teams practised the turnpike
road, the lash was divided among five unfortunate animals, but now the
whole wrath of the driver falls upon one.

We can scarcely view a boat travelling this liquid road, without raising
opposite sensations--pleased to think of its great benefit to the
community, and grieved to behold wanton punishment.

I see a large field of cruelty expanding before me, which I could easily
prevail with myself to enter; in which we behold the child plucking a
wing and a leg off a fly, to try how the poor insect can perform with
half his limbs; or running a pin through the posteriors of a locust, to
observe it spinning through the air, like a comet, drawing a tail of
thread. If we allow, man has a right to destroy noxious animals, we
cannot allow he has a right to protract their pain by a lingering death.
By fine gradations the modes of cruelty improve with years, in pinching
the tail of a cat for the music of her voice, kicking a dog because we
have trod upon his foot, or hanging him for _fun_, 'till we arrive at
the priests in the church of Rome, who burnt people for opinion; or to
the painter, who begged the life of a criminal, that he might torture
him to death with the severest pangs, to catch the agonizing feature,