But the truth is, my fine friend, your annual gratitude is a sorry sham, a cloak, my good fellow, to cover your unhandsome gluttony; and when by chance you do take to your knees, it is only that you prefer to digest your bird in that position.  We understand your case accurately, and the hard sense we are poking at you is not a preachment for your edification, but a bit of harmless fun for our own diversion.  For, look you! there is really a subtle but potent relation between the gratitude of the spirit and the stuffing of the flesh.

We have ever taught the identity of Soul and Stomach; these are but different names for one object considered under differing aspects.  Thankfulness we believe to be a kind of ether evolved by the action of the gastric fluid upon rich meats.  Like all gases it ascends, and so passes out of the esophagus in prayer and psalmody.  This beautiful theory we have tested by convincing experiments in the manner following:—­

Experiment 1st.—­A quantity of grass was placed in a large bladder, and a gill of the gastric fluid of a sheep introduced.  In ten minutes the neck of the bladder emitted a contented bleat.

Experiment 2nd.—­A pound of beef was substituted for the grass, and the fluid of a dog for that of the sheep.  The result was a cheerful bark, accompanied by an agitation of the bottom of the bladder, as if it were attempting to wag an imaginary tail.

Experiment 3rd.—­The bladder was charged with a handful of chopped turkey, and an ounce of human gastric juice obtained from the Coroner.  At first, nothing but a deep sigh of satisfaction escaped from the neck of the bladder, followed by an unmistakeable grunt, similar to that of a hog.  Upon increasing the proportion of turkey, and confining the gas, the bladder was very much distended, appearing to suffer great uneasiness.  The restriction being removed, the neck distinctly articulated the words “Praise God, from whom all blessings flow!”

Against such demonstration as this any mere theological theorizing is of no avail.  Flogging.

It may justly be demanded of the essayist that he shall give some small thought to the question of corporal punishment by means of the “cat,” and “ground-ash.”  We have given the subject the most elaborate attention; we have written page after page upon it.  Day and night we have toiled and perspired over that distressing problem.  Through Summer’s sun and Winter’s snow, with all unfaltering purpose, we have strung miles of ink upon acres of paper, weaving wisdom into eloquence with the tireless industry of a silkworm fashioning his cocoon.  We have refused food, scorned sleep, and endured thirst to see our work grow beneath our cunning hand.  The more we wrote the wiser we became; the opinions of one day were rejected the next; the blind surmising of yesterday ripened into the full knowledge of to-day, and this matured into the superhuman omniscience of this evening.  We have finally got so infernally clever that we have abandoned the original design of our great work, and determined to make it a compendium of everything that is accurately known up to date, and the bearing of this upon flogging in general.