Fair Treatment for Animals. By Ernest Bell. (Bell. 2s. 6d.)
THE essays on various aspects of the question of man’s inhumanity to beasts, which Mr. Bell has reprinted from the Animals’ Friend, raise many difficult questions. Some of us will disagree with the author about hunting. Broadly speaking, our view is that to tilt at windmills when there are so many obvious cruelties and so many immediately practicable reforms is bad policy if our object be to secure better treatment for animals as soon as possible. Genuine reforms generally come gradually and are the result always of education rather than compulsion. Hunting and shooting may change and adapt themselves, for nothing in the world should remain unchangeable. But to go too far in advance of public opinion is not to lead it, but rather to lose all touch. As the author wisely observes, a man whose life has been passed near kennel and saddle-room “cannot possibly take the same view of blood sports as the town-bred moralist, who has never known the excitement of riding to hounds.” We may observe signs of a change of opinion already: many good sportsmen abhor the slaughter of pigeons and the cruelties of coursing. The day is not far distant perhaps when clay-pigeon-traps, the mechanical hare and the drag will supply painlessly the same sport—or at any rate a not too pale similitude—as that which now demands a toll of innocent life.
“Horse Racing: a cruel sport” is a section of Mr. Bell’s book we definitely disagree with. A horse enjoys pitting it’s fleetness against its kind. It is infinitely happier “pawing in the valley and rejoicing in its strength” than drawing a butcher’s cart. “What are the rights of animals?” Mr. Bell asks: his answer is that they have the rights of life and liberty. But it is just this precious gift of life that we are giving to the horse, the dog. the fox and the pheasant in return for a contribution to our amusement. We can love the horse and dog, not the others, and the horse and dog may reasonably be assumed to enjoy working for us, even at the cost of some discomfort to themselves. The use of the whip at a “finish” is not cruel as coursing is cruel. A thoroughbred horse in the splendid exercise of his powers hardly feels the lash, and in any case a good jockey will rarely give him more than a couple of cuts.
If we adopt an inflexible attitude towards sport we land in a mental cul-de-sac such as is loved by theorists: we should cease to eat meat, walk on shoe-leather. or even breathe. Or we should breathe only through gauze, as do the Jains, who carry also a pill-box for fleas, liberating them later in some convenient spot to prey on others not so devout. This is not logical. Logically, breathing, eating and drinking are mild forms of murder with extenuating circumstances, but committed of malice prepense.
If we rely on common sense we shall see that while there are many debatable points in our treatment of animals, we do undoubtedly inflict wrongs on sub-human creatures which could be righted quickly if we read and pondered over books such as this. Do we realize a tithe of the horrors perpetrated for our warmth or adornment? To quote Mr. Edwin Markham —
“Have you seen these creatures die
While the bleeding hours go by—
These poor mothers in the wood
Robbed of joy and motherhood?
Do you, when at night you kneel
See them in their traps of steel?
Do you hear their dying cries
When the crows pick out their eyes?
Women, are the furs you wear
Worth the hell of this despair?”
Surely, also, we can all agree that circus performances of wild animals such as lions are silly and degrading to all concerned? And that caging birds and keeping dogs on leash and lead (“like chaining a child in its most sportive years,” as Ouida said) are generally unnecessary and idiotic cruelties.
We find again some trenchant remarks on the “sportsmanship” of big-game shooting to-day, with its flashlight, telescopic sights, high velocity rifles, and soft-nosed bullets. Certainly it is a poor business to slaughter beautiful beasts from the comparative safety of a machan, especially when we remember what real sport there is in taking motion pictures of wild life. Anyone who has seen Mr. Dugmore’s African film must feel that that is an achievement infinitely superior to the collection of the glassy-eyed, moulting trophies that adorn so many of the halls of England. The fact is, as Miss Pitt says in her charming book, “man is still the most murderous creature alive.” Let us hope we shall change our ways. Mr. Bell reminds us about many things which are wrong in our attitude towards animals, and if we do not agree with all he says, we do most cordially commend his book to the attention of our readers
The Spectator, No. 5,147, February 19, 1927, pp. 290-1
Book Reviewed: Fair Treatment For Animals