Morning journal and courier., 1883-07-27
Eating the Hedgehog,

| Phil Robinson, in the Gsnt1emans Magazine1 1 It is pleasing, however, to know that the | hedgehog has friend, if only in the Kalmuck Tartar, who cultivates it's acquaintance in his
 rude dwelling to drive away the vermin. Once 1 even in Europe it was held in higher honor as l a household pet, and Lipsius wrote a funeral l ode upon the death of Douzas hedgehog Tho Scriptures, too, assign the magnifcence of an ancient Babylon as an inheritance for the hedgehog, though our English versions, | with characteristic injustice, have changed it to the "bittern." The Jews, however, in
 their translations of Holy Writ, have been
 more honest, and with the Rabbis the hedge hog retains it's pride of place as copartner with the pelican among the upper fntels of ruined Median palaces. Another ancient
 race, the gypsies, who, with three sticks and kettle, according to Cowper, 'tcook the flesh obscene of dog" honor the hedgehog also after their kind for they cook that as well. The receipt is not elaborate. They first catch their hedgehog then stamp upon it, incase the corpse in ball of clay, and leave it in the fire till the clay becomes brick This is sub sequently cracked, like 8 cocoanut, and inside is the baked and skinless hedgehog, for it's spines, being imbedded in the brick, drag off the skin with them. Then it is eaten. But the commercial practicabiity of5our civiliza- tion looks askance atsthe hedgehog. We do not eat it. No one milks hedgehog, and it never lays eggs. Formerly the Romans, in- deed, employed it's spiny cuticle for "hack- ling'' hemp, and farmers on the continent still place it upon the huzzles of weaned calves; but with us even these insignificant titles to commercial value have been taken away by the adoption for those purposes of mechanical contrivances of leather and iron. Albertus Magnus used to recommend hedge hogs right eye fried in oil for those who wished to see as well by night as by day; but no specialist of note recommends 1t now. The only sphere of possible utility still open to the English hedgehog in the nineteenth century is the domestic circle; for tame hedgehog has it's uses. It annoys the cat and quenches blackbeetles. Occasionally it gets
 under the gfate and walks of with a red hot coal upon it's back, filling the house with the odor of 8 brush makers manufactory on fire This, however, Is only an error of judgment on the urchin's part, as is also it's occasional disappearance down drain, thereby causing considerable inconvenience to the household. But there Is one great blot upon the hedge hogs moral character; for, like the Rev. erend Stiggins, its s'particular vanity is rum. No one, however, need pander to it's low tastes; and in many respects the hedge- hog might be found as useful as the dog At the Angel Inn, at Felton, in Northumberland, one specimen used to act as turnspit as we'll as the dog that bears that name and if it cannot bark at thieves or run after the car riage, still the hedgehog, as an article of do- mestic furniture, has many good points. This burglar with his boots off might easily find to his cost. Caliban's bitter complaint that Prospero had trained his hedgshogs to
 tsLie tumbling in my barefoot way and mount
 Their bricks at my footfal"
 should be sufficient evidence, if any were wanting, of their capabilities for such ser- vice.