Reminiscences of a Raven

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1866 Excerpt: ... CHAPTER IX. IN WHICH, AS A FORTUNE-TELLER, PEG ACHIEVES CONSIDERABLE 8UCCESS. "There is, as you well know, Rough, a popular belief that a bird suffers nothing from having his wings clipped. It is no more painful, say the brutal wing-elippers, than it is to have one's nails pared or hair cut. Not having had any experience as regards either of these operations, I am of course incompetent to judge exactly the comparison; but I very much doubt if mankind would so cheerfully go to be shorn, and pay the shearer for his labour, if the process caused them a hundredth part of the torture caused me by those frightful scissors." "Poor Peg!" observed the one-eyed terrier, wagging his head sympathetically; "don't I THE MISERIES OF-WING-CLIPPING. 47 know what it is? Shall I ever forget the time when my ears were cropped?" "Pshaw! what comparison, I'd be glad to know, can be established between ear-cropping and wing-clipping? Without your ears you could get about as usual, I presume; you could eat and sleep, and bark and bite as well as ever; but what was my case? Not only was I condemned to depend upon my unused feet for locomotion, but I was debarred from natural rest. How could I compose myself for slumber?--how could I tuck my miserable head under the shameful, shabby things left to me when the horrid old woman released me from the towel? I must confess, however, that at the time I thought little of my bereavement. I had so thoroughly made up my mind that nothing less than my head was coming off, that I could hardly believe my senses when she let me go, and replaced the scissors in the drawer. What did she mean to do with me? For what purpose was my life preserved? By a prodigious effort I regained the top of the clockcase, and there stood trembling, and keeping my e...