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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Untitled Article
cat of superhuman powers was supposed to be in the act of drawing- some full-grown fool from one side of the pond to the other for a wager—he being placed blindfold with his back to the water , the rope which drew him through , though fastened to the cat , was pulled by the knowing ones on the opposite side ; and
yet , though the trick was so manifest , sufficient flats were to be found who would go through this ordeal , acknowledge the wonderful strength of cats , and pay their forfeits like well-juggled fools . In some by-road , or broad , level pathway through another field , you might observe a mechanic engaged in what appears an easy but is a difficult wager , —picking up a hundred stones
placed at measured intervals apart , and depositing them in a basket at the end of the line . The usual time allowed for this performance is forty minutes , and the distance run six miles . If he went on as if he would win , the bets of the by-standers rose enthusiastically from pots of beer to pots of ale : if he appeared to be losing wind , strength , and speed , and looked distressed , pints
were offered , but ' no takers . But if he won , up went my man on the shoulders of two of the lustiest of his admirers ; and so he was borne off the field to the first public-house , no hero at an Olympic game more petted and proud ., though he lacked a Pindar to sing his praise . In some other green corner , not far away , a field-preacher was holding forth to a much smaller audience than
the ducks or the cats drew together . There was one itinerant preacher , however , who brought out thousands to the fields to hear him—a Mr . Cooper , of the Lady Huntingdon connexiona young and eloquent man , who had a great reputation in that day ; but when he left the hedge-row for the pulpit , sunk into a mediocre man . But even he , with all his popularity , could not
escape the Sunday blackguards , who not unfrequently interposed a dead cat , or ' some such small deer , between two pious periods , —a favourite mode of expressing their dissent from Dissenters , in that day . Still deeper in the fields , you might observe a more orderly sort of mechanics , with a taste for bird-fancying , lying among the rich clover , with linnets , goldfinches , and other
singing-birds , placed in small , backed cages at due distances apart from each other , and answering to the birds at liberty about them : meanwhile much learned descant upon the vocal powers of their feathered favourites filled up the pauses in their occasional song . This was harmless enough—a simple taste and pleasure which we should be glad again to see as common as it was then . Men who have a fondness for animals are never either drunken or
depraved ; and are generally as good fathers a 9 they are fanciers . These were some of the scenes of a London Sunday morningthirty year * ago . London is now , thanks to whatever has made it bo , a better-behaved cil y , with better-behaved citizens , entertaining more winheg to be decent , and struggling more for the decencies than did their working fathers . Despite of the con-
Untitled Article
564 A London Sunddy .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1834, page 564, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2636/page/34/
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