The acid rain ate away the statue.  The strong acid eats through the metal.

How does it test out in comparison with the cement?

He was only a little guy and he got absolutely slammed when I burst through the door like a human battering ram. I sent him flying down the hall, then he continued sliding on his back, already unconscious. 'Knock, knock,' I said[…]

[I]s the character and property of the man, who labours for our intellectual pleasures, less entitled to a share of our fellow feeling, than that of the wine-merchant or milliner?