The truth is, a hen's life at best
seems poorer than that of any other known animal. Except when she is
setting, I cannot help having a contempt for her. This also has been
recognized by that common instinct of people which goes to the making of
proverbs; for "Hen's time ain't worth much" is a common saying among
farmers' wives. How she dawdles about all day, with her eyes not an inch
from the ground, forever scratching and feeding in dirtiest places,--a
sort of animated muck-rake, with a mouth and an alimentary canal! No
wonder such an inane creature is wretched when it rains, and her soulless
business is interrupted. She is, I think, likest of all to the human
beings, men or women, who do not know what to do with themselves on rainy
days.
Friends of the Prisoners.
In many of the Paris prisons is to be seen a long, dreary room, through
the middle of which are built two high walls of iron grating, enclosing a
space of some three feet in width.
A stranger visiting the prison for the first time would find it hard to
divine for what purpose these walls of grating had been built.
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