and incantations. Such horrid excesses are credible when we recollect
the age of ignorance and barbarity in which they were practised. He
was at length (for some state crime against the Duke of Brittany)
sentenced to be burnt alive in a field at Nantes, in 1440; but the
Duke, who witnessed the execution, so far mitigated the sentence, that
he was first strangled, then burnt, and his ashes interred. He
confessed, before his death, "that all his excesses were derived from
his wretched education," though descended from one of the most
illustrious families in the kingdom.

* * * * *


EFFECT OF STEAM-COACHES.


In a recent No. of the _Voice of Humanity_, (already noticed in the
_Mirror_,) occurs the following:

We doubt whether our labours to accomplish either of the objects of
this publication, if ever so successful, could produce such complete
mitigation (rather abolition) of animal suffering as the substitution
of locomotive machinery for the inhuman, merciless treatment of horses
in our stage-coaches. The man who started the first steam-carriage was
the greatest benefactor to the cause of humanity the world ever had.
But in a political view the subject is very important. We have a
superabundant population with a very limited territory, while each
horse requires a greater quantity of land than would be sufficient to
support a man. How extensive then would be the beneficial effect of
withdrawing two-thirds of the horses and appropriating the land