For there (say they) the jackals and wild dogs came at
night to devour the offal; whereas, here there are no such natural
scavengers, and quite as savage customs. Further, they will
demonstrate that nothing in Nature is intended to be wasted, and
that besides the waste which such abuses occasion in the articles
of health and life - main sources of the riches of any community -
they lead to a prodigious waste of changing matters, which might,
with proper preparation, and under scientific direction, be safely
applied to the increase of the fertility of the land. Thus (they
argue) does Nature ever avenge infractions of her beneficent laws,
and so surely as Man is determined to warp any of her blessings
into curses, shall they become curses, and shall he suffer heavily.
But, this is cant. Just as it is cant of the worst description to
say to the London Corporation, 'How can you exhibit to the people
so plain a spectacle of dishonest equivocation, as to claim the
right of holding a market in the midst of the great city, for one
of your vested privileges, when you know that when your last market
holding charter was granted to you by King Charles the First,
Smithfield stood IN THE SUBURBS OF LONDON, and is in that very
charter so described in those five words?' - which is certainly
true, but has nothing to do with the question.
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