2. I come therefore to the next ingredient in the soup I am providing;
for, as the housewife said, "there's mutton intilt," and it is the most
important ingredient in the mess. But the animal which produces it, like
the kindred animals that produce the like, serves other purposes as
well, and these no less essential to the exigency of the race; and it is
of them I propose to speak. It is beside my design to enter on the
domain of the sheep-breeder, and attempt an account of the different
kinds reared by the farmer; enough to say that, numerous as these are,
they are all fed and tended for the benefit of the human family, and
that they minister to the supply of the same human wants.

The child, as it frolics on the lawn, stops his gambols and steps gently
aside to coax, to caress his woolly-fleeced companion; and the mother
talks softly to her child of the innocent darlings, and asks if they are
not lovely creatures, and beautiful to look at, as they timidly wander
from spot to spot, and nibble the delicate pasture. So it is to the
lively fancy of childhood, and so it is to the mother whose affections
are naturally melted into softness in the presence of simplicity; but
when economic considerations arise, and the question is one of service
and value, all such sentimental and aesthetic emotions pass out of
court, and only calculations of base utilitarianism fill the eye from
horizon to horizon. No doubt the creatures are lovely and beautiful to
behold on the meadows and hill-sides of the landscape, which they
enliven and adorn; but man must live as well as admire, and unless by
sacrifice of the sheep he must not only go without hodge-podge to his
dinner, but dispense with much else equally necessary to his life and
welfare. The cook requires the sacrifice, that he may purvey for the
tables of both gentle and semple; the tallow-dealer requires the
sacrifice, that he may provide light for our homesteads, and oil for our
engines, both stationary and locomotive; and the wool-merchant and the