For I
should be extremely unwilling to provoke one of them, because I have
been told that, when heated with passion, as these beasts often are,
it sometimes happens that the powder-horns on top of their heads
explode, and spread ruin and desolation around. People here bestow a
vast deal too much consideration on these unpleasant animals, for they
are often seen--that is, those of them that are troubled with weak
eyes--walking along the streets with boards over their faces, as a
protection from the rays of the sun. I don't believe that is the real
reason of the thing, though my brother assures me that it is. I think,
myself, that it is intended as a keen satire upon those young ladies
who wear veils in the streets; but I never will yield my point. I
_will_ wear my veil, so long as I have a complexion worth protecting,
and so long as there are gentlemen worth cutting. The Brighton Bridge
Battery is a delightful promenade on a warm summer's day, it is _so_
shady; but it is closed, I may say, every Wednesday and Thursday, to
accommodate these detestable pets of the public. It seems, as my
brother informs me, that the drovers, from humane considerations, are
in the habit of driving their cattle over to Brighton, (when the
weather is pleasant,) and back again on the next day, in order that
their health may be improved by the sea-air which blows up Charles
River.
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