the viaduct, when it again began snorting and jumping about. On looking into the water, they fancied they saw something on the surface, and also heard a gurgling sound, as of some one drowning. A man named Coxon instantly jumped into the water, and soon succeeded in bringing out the apparently lifeless body of a man, who turned out to be a person named Johnson, a shoemaker belonging to Sunderland, who had, while under the influence of liquor, lost his way and fallen into the pool. He was eventually recovered. This proceeding of the pony cannot be called the mere result of instinct—it appears the exclusive result of reason.
The instances of a reasoning faculty in quadrupeds, birds, and even in some insects, might be multiplied to a great extent, but only one more shall be given. A faithful dog, the property of a medical man (Dr. A), was in the habit, every night at ten o’clock, of coming to his master to tell him it was time to retire to rest. Dr. A’s brother suggested that the clock should be stopped in order to discover how the dog knew the hour. The animal appeared very restless when the clock should have struck, he ran to his master, tapped him on the knee, and would not be satisfied till he followed him to the clock to be convinced that all was not right. The dog was accustomed to go round the house in the evening to ascertain that every place was properly secured. A window shutter was purposely left unclosed in order to test the accuracy of his eye. The faithful animal passed the whole of the night in that room, evidently for the purpose of guarding it. When his master was confined to his bed for some days with a severe illness, the attached dog refused to eat, and at length the Doctor was obliged to get up and appear well, lest the dog should be starved to death.
Nothing varies more than the different tempers of animals. Much of this certainly is owing to ill-usage; but some show from their earliest youth a decided character, either of gentleness or ferocity. For instance, I have a most amiable cat, and two terriers who are great friends with the former. As soon as she had produced her first litter of kittens, nothing would satisfy her till she had brought the dogs to see them. There were only two kittens. When they could see, I had them brought to me. One of them showed the ferocity of a tiger on being touched, striking with her paws, opening her mouth, and spitting. The other, on the contrary, was meek and gentle, and suffered itself to be handled without showing the least fear. Dogs, also, of the same litter will show a great variety in their dispositions. And so among elephants some are docile and affectionate, others are fierce and sulky. Colts and fillies, by the same sire and dam, show early restiveness and violence of disposition, and others the contrary disposition. So it is sometimes with bees. I had a hive, the inhabitants of which always attacked me if I went near them, while those in a neighbouring hive would allow me to do almost anything I pleased with them, without once offering to resent my intrusion.
It is not easy to account for this diversity of disposition, which I have witnessed in very many instances. In the human race it is more perceptible, and any mother of a large family can vouch for the fact.
SWIFT AND THE MOHAWKS.
In one of his letters to Stella, dated from Harley Street, Swift speaks with angry disgust of the nightly outrages then perpetrating in London by bands of dissolute revellers, who assumed the Indian name of Mohawks, to express their wildness and ferocity. From what we can gather about them, from stray passages in the “Spectator” and elsewhere, it would appear that the Mohawks were in the habit of slitting the noses of poor servant maids, and enclosing bewildered old citizens, on their way home from their tavern clubs, in prickly circles of sword points, besides breaking windows with showers of halfpence, ill-treating old watchmen, and pulling down shop signs, and doing other wanton and selfish mischief. In the following ballad I have confronted them with Swift.
A black sedan through Temple Bar
Comes at the midnight chime,
Just as above the silvering roofs
The moon begins to climb.
There is something stern about the place,
And sad about the time.
That black arch rises like Death’s door,
For rebels’ heads are there;
The moonshine, now a silver crown,
Rests upon each in the air,
So bright that you can see their eyes
Upon the clear stars stare.
A grim man sits in the sedan;
It skirts St. Clement’s tower
As high aloft an angel’s voice
Is meting out the hour;
And on the street the moonbeams broad
Meridian brightness shower.
Fast down the Strand the Mohawks come,
With clash of shivering glass;
With bristling swords and flaming links,
That let no watchman pass;
A yellow gown upon a pole
Leads on the drunken mass.
With hurrying cries of “Scour!” and “Scour!”
The revellers rush on;
Red smoky whirls of drifting flame
Light faces woe-begone—
Such faces only night can show,
Day never on them shone.
“Down with the country parson’s chair!”
The drunken Mohawks shout;
“Unearth, old fox! no preaching now
Will save your bacon—out!
Or we’ll slit your nose, and float your chair
Down stream—now, sir, come out!”
The jostled chairmen’s trembling hands
Put down the black sedan;
Then out at once—wild beast from cage—
Strides forth a black-browed man,
Who pushes back the line of swords,
And faces all that clan.
