Massachusetts Spy And Worcester Advertiser

[From the American Daily Advertiser.]
DISSERTATION ON FLIES.
What are flies made for? It is a question which has puzzled me ever since I was two feet high. To other insects, to reptiles, animalcula, and the whole tribe of inferior beings which infest us, there seems to be some sort of final use attached. Deformity is in most cases compensated by an advantage. Those which are even terrible to view have something noble in the very terror which pleases us. The roaring menace of a furious lion is grand. There is a charm in the proudly uplifted crest of a serpent. The dragon and the griffin, the lizard and the sea serpent strike us with wonder; but the senseless, wretched, harmless fly, is a creature sui generis in this respect. It cannot hurt you: you do not fear it. Its deformity is shocking. You despise it; and yet the eternal haunting of this half dead, languid creature, bobbing in your mouth, whizzing past your ear, flying through your candle, is intolerable.
I love a musquito—delightful creature! Its chirp is worth a bite; there is something like music in its modest notes; there is a gamut; and what is the red drab it sucks from you in comparison with the previous melody? The itching to be sure—but never mind that. The musquito can sting you—there is power, and you may dignify his conduct with the name of persecution. The musquito is brave—it gives you warning of its presence before it bites: you may defend yourself; but the mean, puny wretch of a fly, that is ever busy in doing nothing—without the ability to injure, or the sense to keep quiet, and can do nothing, is a disgrace to the family of creatures, and excites loathing and disgust.
You have scarce any compassion for a fly, he is such a perfect fool. He will rush into the hot tallow, or through the burning wick like a salamander, but there he is kicking and switching in helpless agony, dragging his slow and greasy length over your coat or hand. There was a certain Roman Emperor who took delight in bodkinning these torments. No doubt he had good reason for it. There is, in fact, no other way of getting rid of them, but exterminating them by death. But I hate to hurt them—but this I do confess, that I do not feel half the sorrow when in my fervour I see the silly things drop dead, that I do at seeing the blood of a mutilated musquito or crushed cockroach. I have in younger days considered with delight the deluded multitude crowding to destruction on a fly-trap—they sip and sip until their gluttony is punished by a watery grave, concealed beneath the well sweetened bread. I like yet to see them tantalized with the fly brush—driven from a dainty bowl of milk—or whipped up from a sugar dish. And then again to see the pampered wretches full length in your cream pot, scampering over your favourite dish, or drowned by quantities in a luscious goblet of delightful, untasted drink—it's enough to rouse the temper and vengeance of a patient Job himself.
The musquito is noble—he only asks a few hours, at the most, for his banquet, and he does banquet and is off. But be ye up or down, walking, or sitting, or sleeping, or walking, or catnapping, at home or abroad, the fly will wheeze ad infinitum.
I was awake all night last night (thermometer at least one hundred) by a fly and musquito. I let my singing friend have the reward of his carol in a hearty draught from one of my choicest veins. I itched, I scratched, but did not complain, and in an hour or two it was over.—But for the rest of the night there was a fly, weak and impotent as sleep, bobbing lazily in my face. I turned—he whizzed past my ear. I twisted—but there he was trampling upon my hair. I shook my head—he leaped on that exquisitely tender inch under my nose. I blowed him, but oh! it's a long chapter—I blowed and knocked, and shook myself into a fever—'twas all the same, and then I got up and dressed and put my bandana over my head, and dozed in my easy chair. Buzz—there he goes down my throat while I was gaping—the very identical fellow—I knew him by his bum drum, I've caught him, and put him out of the window.—Me Hercule, he's back again—I'll go and hang myself.
SCORBULO.