THE Animals’ Friend has never been run on business principles for the sake of pecuniary profit, but purely on humane grounds in the hope that it might carry a message of sympathy with, and love for, the animals of all kinds, whether tame or wild, whose cause we plead, and thus sow seeds of humane feeling in the public mind. The only profit it looks forward to is in the form of compound interest in the ever-increasing consideration for the sensitive creatures who are under our control.
In the circumstances it may seem a little wonderful that the Animals’ Friend has lived on and done its work for thirty-five years. This is due partly to the fact that the literary matter is all given freely by the writers, and also that no office expenses have had to be charged; while, on the other hand, we have in the thirty-five years received a generous legacy, which has made this possible with the Sustentation Fund above mentioned.
The number now printed of the magazine is 2,500 copies, while the Little Animals’ Friend has long ago outnumbered its parent with a monthly demand of 7,000. It circulates now in considerable numbers in schools in New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, and America, as well as at home, and meets with much favour and is doing excellent work in impressing the rising generation with humane ideas of our duty towards all animals, as is shown by many letters received by the editor from teachers and also from the young readers themselves in distant parts of the world.
What we want our readers to do is to ponder these facts a little, and if they think the magazine is doing useful work to do what they may be able to increase the circulation of both magazines, and thus enlarge their influence in the world, for the sake of the animals whose cause we live to plead—not to forget our Sustentation Fund, and to ask their wealthy friends to make us a present now and then, which will be carefully applied to the best advantage of our animal friends.
There are now, we are glad to say, many more humanitarian magazines than there were when we first started, but the great majority exist, quite properly, we think, to plead the cause of some special section of our very wide subject, and we think the Animals’ Friend is the only one which seeks to arouse interest in all branches of humane reform, whether Vivisection, Performing Animals, Old Horse Traffic, Pit Ponies, Dogs, Cats, Humane Killing, Humane Teaching in Schools, or last, but not least, the Humane Diet question.
(Reprinted from the Animals’ Friend.)
Ernest Bell
The Vegetarian News, Vol. 9 No. 104, August 1929, p. 300