Clergyman of the Church of England
Sermon on Cruelty to the Brute Creation
A Clergyman of the Church of England, A Sermon on the Unjustifiableness of Cruelty to the Brute Creation, and the Obligation we are Under to Treat it with Lenity and Compassion (London: Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, 1824); Online at Animal Rights History, 2003.
The wise man calls upon us to “open our mouths.” The “dumb,” in whose cause we are required to do this, are the unhappy victims of their lawless cruelty and oppression; wretches, who have no kind advocate to plead in behalf of their invaded rights; no helping hand to procure for them redress from their furious assailants; no friend to truth, ready, or willing, to expose the cunning devices wherewith they have been entrapped.—Well may they be called “dumb,” since their tongues can be of no avail to them, when silenced by the imperiousness of wealth, the dread of irritating, by a vain appeal to justice, those under whose hands they have already groaned, to still further acts of violence, and their utter inability to baffle the false gloss with which the vile schemes of their adversaries have deluded them.
What they have it not in their power to utter for themselves, justice is ever ready to proclaim for them. By acts of cruelty, or an unfeeling inattention to the relief of their wants and distresses, we violate that branch of it which is distinguished by the endearing title of Mercy and Compassion; we debase our nature by betraying a savageness of disposition, that sinks us below a level with the placid and gentle race over which we unwarrantably tyrannise.
But, can we conceive it to be allowable for us wantonly to sacrifice quiet and harmless reptiles, merely because the shape and figure which it has pleased the God of Nature to stamp upon them, are loathsome in our eyes? The “bloated toad,” the “slimy snail,” and “unsightly beetle,” have not all these, their feelings, as we have ours? Are they not the work of the same Almighty hand by which we likewise were framed? And are not their lives entitled to preservation, and freedom from misery, equally with our own?
Let us “open our mouths” for those “dumb,” but significant and friendly clients: let us make up, by every plea which we can urge in their favour, what their own tongues are unable to express: let the wailings and moans, with which they implore our assistance, operate as the strongest arguments on our feeling, commiserating minds. Oh! let us not be “dumb” ourselves, but loud in their defence.
Donations and Scriptions for the use of this Society are received at the following Banking-houses;—Messrs. MARTIN, STONE, and MARTIN, Lombard Street; Messrs. HAMMERSLEYS and Co. Pall-Mall; Messrs. FRY and CHAPMAN, Mildred’s Court, Poultry: by Messrs. HATCHARD and SON, Bookseller, Piccadilly; and Messrs. WHITMORE and FENN, Booksellers, Charing-Cross. All communications and letters are requested to be addressed, free of Postage, to the Honorary Secretary, the Rev. A. BROOME, at the Society’s Rooms, No. 6, Great Queen Street, Lincoln’s-Inn Fields.
A SERMON
ON THE
UNJUSTIFIABLENESS OF CRUELTY
TO THE
BRUTE CREATION,
AND THE OBLIGATION WE ARE UNDER TO TREAT IT WITH LENITY AND COMPASSION.
__________________
BY A CLERGYMAN OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
LONDON:
PUBLISHED BY THE SOCIETY FOR THE PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO ANIMALS;
And sold by RIVINGTON, St. Paul’s Church-Yard; HATCHARD and Son, Piccadilly; and WHITMORE and FENN, Charing-Cross.
Price 3d. or 15s. per Hundred.
_____
1824
Howlett and Brimmer, Printers, Frith-Street, Soho.
「3」
ASERMON, &c.
PROVERBS, chap. xxxi. ver. 8.
Open thy mouth for the dumb.
IT has ever been considered as the mark of an equally degenerate and cowardly disposition, to exert the superior faculties, either of mind or body, with which Providence may have endowed us, in oppressing such objects as are destitute of the means of acting, in their own defence. With respect to our treatment of the individuals of our own species, the rich and powerful, who trample on their poor helpless neighbours; the man of strength, who, confiding in his arm of flesh, is engaged in perpetual broils and contentions with the weak and timid; the artful, designing knave, ensnaring, by his crafty wiliness, “the simple, who are void of understanding;” these are characters which we cannot reflect upon without the utmost contempt and abhorrence. It is against such pests of society that the wise man calls upon us to “open our mouths.” The “dumb,” in whose cause we are required to do this, are the unhappy victims of their lawless cruelty and oppression; wretches, who have no kind advocate to「4」plead in behalf of their invaded rights; no helping hand to procure for them redress from their furious assailants; no friend to truth, ready, or willing, to expose the cunning devices wherewith they have been entrapped.—Well may they be called “dumb,” since their tongues can be of no avail to them, when silenced by the imperiousness of wealth, the dread of irritating, by a vain appeal to justice, those under whose hands they have already groaned, to still further acts of violence, and their utter inability to baffle the false gloss with which the vile schemes of their adversaries have deluded them.
This appears to be the purport of the injunction in my text, which, though immediately applicable to the case of those amongst the human race, who (as in the instances before alluded to) are so liable to be “struck dumb,” may, I conceive, without offering any violence to the words, be considered in a “secondary” sense, and extended to a class of beings, “literally, and absolutely, dumb,” which we distinguish by the appellation of the “brute creation;” beings, formed by the same Almighty hand that gave existence to our own species, and on the finishing of the several ranks and orders of which, even to “every creeping thing that creepeth on the earth,” the sacred historian tells us “God saw that it was good.”
Inferior as they are to ourselves, they are yet our “fellow-creatures;” and, with such a sanction as I have before mentioned, at their being called forth into life, were entitled, from the first, to the care and protection of him, to whom, as Lord and Governor of the World, their Maker had assigned the dominion over them. They were so ordered and disposed as to contribute, in their respective capacities, to his benefit and delight, and would have continued to answer the same「5」gracious purpose to his descendants, had not the more fierce and formidable part of them been permitted, in consequence of his transgression, to shake off the yoke, and renounce the sovereignty of man.
There still remains no small portion of them, subservient to our use, and subject to our control; and, as such, having a claim to that regard for their well-being, which it is in our power to exhibit by acts of gentleness and compassion towards them.
The good and righteous (or just and merciful) will ever be inclined, and ready, to render their existence not merely free from pain and misery, but even comfortable; nor can a contrary kind of usage be viewed in any other light than as a deviation from the principles of religion, morality, and common humanity.
By the judicial law, which formed a part of the sacred Jewish dispensation, express provision was made for compensating the labours of that useful animal, which by “treading out the corn,” contributed to the sustenance of man. A regard was had to the satisfying of his appetite, in return for the service that he performed to his owner, through his constant and beneficial toil. And can the heart of a “Christian” suffer him to withhold the discharge of such lenient offices as are due to creatures possessed, like ourselves, of the powers of animation; alive, as we are, to the sensations of pleasure and pain, and equally the operation of his divine hands, whose “tender mercies are over all his works,” and one gracious design of whose Blessed Son’s coming into the world, was, to enforce an imitation (as far as we are able to advance therein) of the attributes of his Heavenly Father?
Will not he, who “giveth food unto all cattle,” avenge their cause, when the merciless hand shall be lifted up against them? Will he patiently endure an inhuman torturing of that part of the creation, which, together with “kings of the earth, and all people, princes and all judges of the world,” are called upon by the Psalmist to praise his holy name? Was not Balaam rebuked by the Angel of the Lord for striking the dumb ass? Shall God vouchsafe to look down from Heaven with an eye of mercy and loving-kindness on ourselves, who are, in his sight, but as “mere worms;” and shall man disdain, to show the least marks of tenderness on speechless, irrational inhabitants of the earth, which, though placed below him, do yet, in the scale of beings, press close on the heels of his own class? In a word, can they, who are called by the name of Christ, think themselves authorised to treat with barbarity, or even neglect, that tame and tractable division of the mute animal world, from a very inferior rank in which, choice was made for the high honour.a of carrying “the Lord of life and glory” in triumph to Jerusalem.
What religion enjoins is moreover strongly enforced by morality.b A virtuous heathen would have disdained to deprive of their right, and thereby occasion the misery of dumb creatures; to some of which, by their laborious exertions in preparing the way for our procuring the staff of life, and furnishing us at their death with ample means of sustenance from their own flesh, we are so greatly indebted for our nourishment; to some for our raiment, as well as food; whilst others of them not only afford us their assistance, together with their yoked fellow-labourers, in the necessary work of tilling the ground, but likewise contribute in no small degree to our being equally supplied with the comforts「7」and conveniences of life: what they have it not in their power to utter for themselves, justice is ever ready to proclaim for them. By acts of cruelty, or an unfeeling inattention to the relief of their wants and distresses, we violate that branch of it which is distinguished by the endearing title of Mercy and Comp+assion; we debase our nature by betraying a savageness of disposition, that sinks us below a level with the placid and gentle race over which we unwarrantably tyrannise.
If we are not, either as Christians or moral agents, impelled to “regard the lives of our beasts,” surely the common feelings of humanity, that sympathising, tender principle, which causeth us to shudder at the agonies of our own species, and to transfer them in some measure to ourselves, will not suffer us to turn a deaf ear to the voice of nature, crying out for mercy on dumb, helpless, animated beings. The nerves that vibrate at the woe of a suffering human object, should, one would think, be proportionably agitated, on a view of the pitiable condition of abused or neglected creatures, which have a stronger claim to our watchful attention to them, from their being, as was our own case in a state of infancy, unable to express, otherwise than by their cries, their uneasy sensations. Not to promote their happiness, as far as their nature is susceptible of it, (and that it is so in some degree, may reasonably be inferred from their occasional lively gestures and exultations,) argues a deficiency of that benevolent spirit which rejoiceth in universally doing good: not to endeavour, at least, to soften the rigour of the constant round of labour, to which some of them are devoted, cannot but proceed from an unfeelingness for the most serviceable part of the inferior animal creation, at which gratitude revolts;—but, to proceed to acts of positive cruelty against「8」them,—to take a horrid delight in plaguing and tormenting them,—what words can describe the blackness and malignity of the heart which could be worked up to such a pitch of the most unnatural depravity ?
It grieves me to reflect, that instances of such a monstrous transgression against the dictates of humanity, do not seldom occur amongst the inhabitants of a land distinguished by so civilised a character as our own. From the callous hind that “goadeth the” patient “ox,” to the man of fortune and high birth, a refinement of whose pleasures not unfrequently consists in forcing, beyond their ordinary powers of exertion, the strength and agility of one of the noblest beings of the brute creation, we may trace, through their intermediate orders, an uninterrupted series, in some of their members, of hard-heartedness towards such other mute animals as may happen to be more immediately under their respective control.
To go back to the earliest display of the operations of unrestrained nature on the human mind, even “lisping infants” are not without their objects of cruelty, the torturing of which is considered as an allowable amusement. The delicate, fond parent, who trembles at the apprehension of her darling child’s enduring the smallest degree of pain, will yet smile at seeing that very child spitefully teasing a harmless insect, and perhaps suffer it, with impunity, barbarously to tear it “limb from limb.”
What can we expect, but that the poison thus imbibed by the tender plant, should increase together with its growth, and diffuse its malignant influence through the whole infected substance ? The unchecked, mischievous temper of the child, terminates in the confirmed barbarity of the man. As he advances in years,「9」so does he in the ferocity of his disposition: the friendly domestic class of animals soon feel the force of his tormenting hand: should it be his lot to move in a higher sphere of life, when, at length, being freed from restraint, he is at liberty to rove wherever his inclination may lead him, the same want of compassion towards inferior creatures, (if, indeed, on a comparison of them with himself, they may justly be so called), fails not to accompany him in his sports and recreations, on the road and in the field.c Witness the bleeding, lacerated, sides of the graceful, ill-fated quadruped, doomed, at his call, to sustain the inglorious weight of so unworthy a burden.
But we must not stop here: there are not wanting examples, with still greater aggravation, of the most exquisite pains being wantonly inflicted by man on his kindred, animated workmanship of God’s hand. As if it were not enough to persecute the lives of his creatures with an unremitted course of misery, I shudder at the very thought of some shocking instances, in which they scruple not to embitter their death, by causing it to linger under the dreadful smart of the sharpest kind of torture, which the most sanguinary mind could have invented.d It seems our palate is not to be gratified but at the expence of forfeiting all just claim to the character of human beings. A detail of singular, horrid specimens of cruelty, in confirmation of this assertion, would ill suit the solemnity of an address in the House of God, to a Christian congregation.
The same principle which forbids us tyrannically to「10」domineer over the lives, much more to enhance the “dying pangs,” of an order of beings, that, on account of their industry and serviceableness, have a claim to “our lenity and kind treatment, restrains us likewise from acts of unnecessary violence towards various other species of animals, of a less friendly and inviting nature. However noxious their qualities may be, however disgusting their form, we are not, in the former case, justified in aggravating their anguish at our destruction of them; nor, in the latter, in depriving them of life, after “any manner whatever.” Self-preservation does, indeed, dictate the necessity of putting an end to the existence of what would otherwise prove fatal to us: nor does reason or conscience prohibit our punishing with death, the depredations of the ravenous invaders of our folds, and devourers of our defenceless brood, or the more diminutive pernicious plunderers of our internal domestic stores.
The lives thus forfeited we have an undoubted right to destroy; with this restriction, that we inflict on the sufferers the least degree of pain that is possible. But, can we conceive it to be allowable for us wantonly to sacrifice quiet and harmless reptiles, merely because the shape and figure which it has pleased the God of Nature to stamp upon them, are loathsome in our eyes ? The “bloated toad,” the “slimy snail,” and “unsightly beetle,” have not all these, their feelings, as we have ours ? Are they not the work of the same Almighty hand by which we likewise were framed ? And are not their lives entitled to preservation, and freedom from misery, equally with our own? We can have no reason to dread what we know has not the power of attacking us; and yet, on the plea of their being terrified at the「11」sight, particularly of one of these obnoxious animals, with what accumulated exertions of barbarity are children permitted (I wish I could not add, sometimes even encouraged by the example of those who have the care of them,) to deprive the miserable, detested object of its existence!e
The infant that is taught to refrain from tormenting the mute little animals that may come within his reach, will contract such an early aversion to cruelty as will prevent him, in the progress of his growth, from malevolently inflicting pain on those of a larger size; much more, on a further advancement in years, from creating uneasiness or offering any kind of injury to his fellow rational beings, towards whom he will be prompted, by the settled mildness of his disposition, to acts of the kindest and most virtuous tendency.
On the contrary—when, almost from the cradle to the age of maturity, full scope shall have been given to our natural depravity; when the seeds of a cruel malignity which have been sown in our childhood, shall, in a course of time, have taken deep root in our hearts, what must the produce be but such an increase of barbarity to the brute creation, as will necessarily incite us, when arrived at man’s estate, to the most violent exertions of oppression and tyranny towards the no less miserable objects of our own kind?
How deplorable must the condition of poor silent sufferers (of whatever denomination) be, under the dominion of such “lords over them?” We are directed by the wise man to plead the cause of the rational part of them; and it has been my endeavour to evince the obligation we are under, as Christians, as moral「12」agents, and as mere human beings, to assert the rights, and avert the misery, I may add, to promote the ease, and even happiness of the creatures below us, by a compassionate regard to their wants, and just claim to a grateful return for their usefulness and services to mankind.
Let us “open our mouths” for those “dumb,” but significant and friendly clients: let us make up, by every plea which we can urge in their favour, what their own tongues are unable to express: let the wailings and moans, with which they implore our assistance, operate as the strongest arguments on our feeling, commiserating minds. Oh! let us not be “dumb” ourselves, but loud in their defence, notwithstanding the small hopes we may entertain of success, in our appeal against the unmercifulness of “depraved wretches,” on whose obdurate hearts no powers of human speech, no piercing cries of smarting, agonizing, mute animals, are likely to make the slightest impression.
That part of the animal creation, which has hitherto, been the subject of our consideration, consists chiefly of such valuable quadrupeds, as, from their gracefulness and agility, their patience of toil, their faithfulness and general utility, one would think should need no recommendation to our compassionately regarding their lives, and alleviating, to the utmost of our power, the agonies of their death. To rob them of this just claim, more especially, not only to be insensible to, but even make a sport of their misery, is a degree of barbarity shocking to human nature.
But what is this when compared to a practice that forms, “even in a Christian country,” the substance of an annual “diversion,” at the very thoughts of which「13」a cold horror thrills in our vein ! Leaving to the tyranny of their owners the quadrupeds formed for our pleasure and support, and as such entitled to the mildest treatment, let us cast our eyes on that persecuted, but stately and courageous part of the “feathered race,” which custom, to the disgrace of our nation f, has doomed to the wretched condition of being exposed, at the stake,† as a mark for destruction, accompanied with every token of outrage, at the hands of hardened boys and “still more abandoned men:” a practice, exulting in the open violation of all order and decorum; extending itself through the metropolis to every inferior town, and instilling into the minds of those who are addicted to it, the principles of cruelty, in addition to those of gaming and almost every evil work.
Whilst such abominable spectacles are permitted to be publicly exhibited in our streets, as a gratification to the eyes of the spectator, and as affording a display of barbarous dexterity in the actor, with what disposition can we expect them to return from their savage entertainment, but with hearts already too well inclined to acts of inhumanity in general, and, it may be, in the end, impelling them to the commission of the most enormous deeds, at the bare mention of which they would heretofore have shuddered.
Let us then, if not from motives of pity towards innocent, tortured animals, yet from a principle of self-preservation, rescue them from the claws of these “human vultures.” Let us consider that our very existence does in some measure depend on the abolishing「14」of horrid practices, which, whether confined to the deplorable domestic objects of our cruelty, or reserved for public sports of the most disgraceful and mischievous kind, equally tend to the utter extermination of every social virtue and restraint of morality. He, in particular, who, in the days of his childhood or youth, can take a more than brutal delight in shedding himself, or seeing others shed, with every aggravation of the most cowardly and excruciating barbarity, the blood of not only a harmless animal, but likewise a most striking specimen of beauty and courage in “the feathered tribe,” will, at a more advanced period, be too naturally prompted to an indiscriminate and merciless effusion of “our own.”
NOTES
TO
THE S E R M 0 N.
NOTE (A), p. 6.
KNOWLES on the Passion, (sect. i. Narrative of Palm Sunday,) observes, that “Bishop Sherlock does hot seem to reason with his usual accuracy, in his endeavour to answer the ridicule of the infidel, at this circumstance of the scripture history, by showing that the ass was not then reckoned so contemptible a creature as we now reckon it since kings and princes are described in the Old Testament as riding upon it; for as it is given by the prophet to be characteristic of the Messiah, and this very riding upon the foal of an ass is introduced as an evidence that he was meek and lowly, therefore the more contemptible the beast, the greater was his humility.”
Certainly nothing could exceed our Blessed Lord’s humility on every occasion—and particularly on this—respecting which, it is obvious to remark, that the very circumstance of the abject state of the beast was the cause of its exaltation to the high honour conferred upon it, compared to which, that of the elephant, with its caparisons of gold, and an Asiatic monarch on its back, is as nothing.
「16」This poor animal is entitled to a far different kind of treatment from what it experiences. Patient to the utmost degree, and highly serviceable as its incessant labour is, it is yet exposed to the roughest treatment from the lowest dregs of the people, and the wantonness of children. It is their sport and scoff; is beaten, overladen, and in general, mal-treated without consideration, and without mercy: it is and never to lie down to sleep without having suffered much fatigue. Let those who are situated in the neighbourhood of collieries, view, if they can, without horror and indignation, numbers of the species, at different times, sprawling in the highways, under their insupportable burdens.
NOTE (B), p. 6.
THE sense which the ancients entertained of the qualities of their domesticated animals, may be collected from the epithets bestowed on them. We read of the honest, hard-working ox;「”animal sine fraude dolisq;” ” natum tolerare labores,” Ovid」; the tame, gentle, serviceable sheep;「”placidum genus, inq; tuendos natum homines,” id.」the generous steed;「”pecoris generosi pullus,” Virg.」 the faithful, vigilant dog;「”fida canum custodia,” Cic.」「”vigilum canum excubiæ,” Hor.」These valuable properties undoubtedly endeared them to their owners, and their services were considered as worthy of some kind of remuneration. They even went so far as to provide for their comfort, when they had ceased to be useful or profitable, and were not unmindful of them after their death.
Plutarch, in his life of Cato, condemning him for selling his old worn-out servants, urges against him the contrary practice of treating horses. He tells us, “the Athenians, when they had built their Hecatompedon, set at liberty all the beasts of burden that had been employed on that occasion, suffering them to feed at large in the pastures, free 17 from any further service. He says, the graves of Cimon’s horses, with which he thrice conquered at the Olympic Games, were to be seen in his time; and that many others were careful to bury their dogs, which, when alive, they used like familiar friends. He observes, that it is agreeable to a humane good-natured man, to take care even of his cart-horses and dogs, not only whilst they are young and useful, but when they are grown old and past their labour; that we are not to use living creatures as we do our shoes or household goods, which we throw away when they are worn out with use; and that, were it only to qualify ourselves for acts of humanity, we should, by long practice, accustom ourselves to be tender and humane in these little matters.”
NOTE(C), p. 9.
NOTHING is here meant in derogation of the generous and manly pleasure of the chace, by which the ancient Persians fitted their kings for war and government, and which is still considered as part of a royal education.—「Univ. Hist. under the article Nimrod.」The censure is directed against those who prostitute so noble an exercise to an utter neglect of every other laudable pursuit; and, instead of using it as a means of invigorating their bodies, and enlivening their minds with a glow of diffusive cheerfulness, return sullenly to their homes, with no other ideas than such as are suggested by the recollection of their sport, and bestow what little remains they may have of good humour on animals of indeed scarcely less reason than themselves.
Amongst the inferior animals there is no more striking object than the graceful, spirited horse, “rejoicing in the race,” a diversion sanctioned by the legislature, on the principle of encouraging a peculiarly fine breed of that noble creature: but how has it been perverted by the introduction of what are called “matches,” the basis of which is a「18」regular system of “gaming ?” In order to obtain the prize, no regard is had to the life of the poor beast: it is a real, however horrid, fact, that, just at the instant of starting, an operation has been performed on it, the effect of which was, that during the space of time taken up in reaching the goal, its speed was greatly accelerated; but (as it was known must have been the case) the devoted animal, at the moment of its obtaining the victory, fell a sacrifice to it.
The following article (from the Weekly Entertainer, of May 27, 1793,) is disgraceful in the extreme to the human monsters concerned in the enormity which it relates:—“Two horses started, April 16, 1793, at Whitechapel church, to proceed 100 miles (to the fifty-mile-stone, Colchester, and back again) in twelve hours. On their return one of them died at Boreham, (the thirty-two mile-stone,) having performed sixty-eight miles of the journey; the other crawled through Chelmsford, with a lad on his back, and died at Widford, (the twenty-seven mile-stone) wanting twenty-three miles to win the bet. Execrations, on the whole road, attended the brutal owners of the two fine animals that were thus cruelly sacrificed”
The author cannot refrain from inserting in this place the cool recital of a fresh instance of barbarity to this noble beast, which he leaves to the reflection of the humane reader, and which appeared in the Salisbury and Winchester Journal, (and probably in most of the other newspapers,) April 13, 1801:— “Mr. W —’s mare, Tuneful, who has bolted every race she ever ran before, was Tuesday last rode at Newmarket, in winkers, with her tongue tied with whip-cord, &c.“
NOTE(D), p. 9.
IT is hoped, for the honour of human nature, that what is reported of little sucking animals, that are destined to the「19」spit, being whipt to death, in order that their flesh may be rendered the more nice and palatable, is not founded on truth. At the same time it cannot but be matter of serious lamentation to every portion of the least seeking that acts of no less cruelty, exercised on beasts of the larger size, are too well attested.
“It is the constant practice to bleed calves to death, for the purpose of whitening the meat; and the process evinces ingenuity in torture. An incision is made in the throat, and the animal is hung up by the heels to a beam, while yet alive, and convulsed with pain: one end of a short iron hook is stuck in the body near the tail, and the other in the mouth, for the purpose of bending the neck and opening the wound; and in this state the poor beast remains sometimes for hours before it dies.
“The mode of felling oxen, although less objectionable, is still unnecessarily barbarous. The writer of this article has seen an ox, with its head almost shattered to pieces, five several times break from the butcher, after receiving many blows! The subject is so painful and disgusting, that the multitude have not decision enough to credit it; and thus it happens, that either with cruel indifference they submit to the abuse, or, with mistaken notions of necessity, silence the pleadings of humanity.
“Lord Somerville, to whom society is much indebted for his benevolent and patriotic endeavours to promote useful knowledge, took with him to Lisbon a person to be instructed in the Portuguese method of slaying oxen, or, as it is there termed, from the mildness of the process, “to lay down the cattle.”—The butcher stands in the front of the animal, and, holding the right horn in his left hand, passes a sharp-pointed knife, about six inches in the blade, over its brow, through the vertebræ of the neck into the spine, and in an instant it is dead.
「20」“His Lordship has engaged to have our slaughtering butchers here instructed in this practice; but they, with all the pertinacity and prejudice to be expected from such a class, decline the offer, and, we fear, will continue to do so, unless the legislature of the community, by appropriate resolutions, should coerce its adoption.”
NOTE (E), p. 11.
“ONE thing I have frequently observed in children, that when they have got possession of any poor creature, they are apt to use it ill: they often torment and treat very roughly young birds and butterflies, and such other poor animals which fall into their hands, and that with a seeming kind of pleasure. This I think should be watched in them, and if they incline to any such cruelty, they should be taught the contrary usage. For the custom of tormenting and killing of beasts, will, by degrees, harden their minds even against men; and they who delight in the suffering and destruction of inferior creatures, will not be apt to be very compassionate or benign to those of their own kind. Children should, from the beginning, be bred up in an abhorrence of killing or tormenting any living creature; and be taught not to spoil or destroy any thing, unless it be for the preservation or advantage of some other that is noble: and truly, if the preservation of all mankind, as much as in him lies, were every one’s persuasion, as indeed it is every one’s duty, and the true principle to regulate our religion, politics, and morality by, the world would be much quieter and better natured than it is. But to return to our present business: I cannot but commend both the kindness and prudence of a mother I knew, who was wont always to indulge her daughters, when any one of them desired dogs, squirrels, birds, or any such things as young girls use to be delighted 「21」with; but then, when they had them, they must be sure to keep them well, and see that they were not ill-used. For if, they were negligent in their care of them, it was counted a great fault, which often forfeited their possession, or at least they failed not to be rebuked for it. And, indeed, I think people should be accustomed, from their cradles, to be tender to all sensible creatures, and to spoil and waste nothing at all.”
—Locke on the Education of Children, under the article Cruelty.
NOTE (F), p.13.
IT were to be wished that the magistrates throughout the kingdom would suppress, in their respective districts an annual public nuisance, which is such an outrage to humanity. There is too little reason to hope for the same fate to the disgraceful abuse of this animal on a no less horrid occasion, which is countenanced by the “gentry,” as they are called, and even persons of a superior station; the bringing it on the stage, armed with instruments of death, and compelling it to persist in the bloody contest with its fellow-combatant, till one or the other of them loses its life; each stroke on either side being seconded with redoubled bets, in proportion to the probability of its proving fatal.
It is not much to the credit of the attendants, “amongst our own countrymen,” at these exhibitions, that the King of Denmark, (when in England, 1768,) on having been invited to one of them, and after a formal oration addressed to him in their praise, retired from a sight so distressing to his feelings, highly disappointed, and with the utmost disgust.
_______________
There are not wanting advocates for the “future existence” of brutes; an opinion, with regard to which the「22」writer of this thinks be may venture to acknowledge (and he dares not advance any farther) that it appears to be founded on a principle of benevolence. The following extract from the London Magazine, vol. 22, p. 279, consists of sentiments so compassionately applicable to the peculiar case of the brute creation, that he considers it as no unsuitable addition and conclusion to the preceding occasional remarks:
It is asked, “How the economy of Divine Providence, with respect to the brute creation, can be made agreeable with our conceptions of the Supreme Being and his attributes, upon the supposition of this being the first and final stage of their existence. That they are endowed with some degree of reason and reflection, and a sensibility of pain as well as pleasure, is allowed to be a truth incontestable. Nor is it less evident and unquestionable, that the latter is oftentimes overbalanced by the former. To instance only in that excellent and most serviceable animal, the horse. What exquisite, what affecting tortures do many of those animals endure (though some few of them, perhaps, meet with a more friendly fate) from some merciless, callous-hearted monster of a master ? How frequently, to the pangs of hunger and a distempered body, are there added the most cutting stripes and scourges, most liberally, and as wantonly oft-times, dealt out to them by their inhuman driver, or some human brutes on post-horses, and all this merely for their not effecting, perhaps, impossibilities?
“But wherefore all this wretchedness, this unrewarded toil and labour? Wherefore all these agonizing pains and miseries heaped on a helpless, hopeless offspring of Divine Providence ? Are they not a living, animated part of the creation ? Are they not flesh and blood? Do they not, as well as we, know what sorrow means? Yes ! and for「23」man only, his use, or accidentally his pride, his wantonness, and his cruelty, were they brought into a sensible existence?
“Shall one being be created, but even under the bare possibility of being made miserable (more or less,) solely for the use and service of another? Lord, what is man ? or rather, what are not brutes? Shall they be found suffering, without cause, without a recompense ? The unmerited sufferings among men are urged with great strength of reasoning, in proof of a recompence reserved for them in an hereafter. And must a being that happens to move in some lower sphere of animated existence, be at once pronounced unworthy of the like provisions? Why must we plead a kind of right to be dealt with on the part of justice and equity by the Almighty, and yet think it no injury done to brutes, if their sufferings in a state they are even forced into by the same common Lord and Maker of all things, meet not from him in an hereafter similar tokens of that universal and impartial goodness towards his creatures, so necessary and essential to the divine nature ?”
The autheor of the extract adds, after a few lines: “Let it not be thought that I am impertinently prying into the secret counsels of the Almighty, or endeavouring to know “the ordinances of Heaven.” No ! I mean only to awaken mankind into a course of reflections, with respect to the brute creation, neither useless, unbecoming, or even unnecessary. I would warn them against concluding too hastily, that brutes can be made liable, as they are, to pain and misery, solely in compliment to man; since no opinion, I think, can be more unfavourable to the honour and dignity of the Supreme Being or his attributes. In short, we have a scripture whereon to ground our confidence that no part of the brute creation, not even a sparrow, is so inconsiderable in the sight of God as in that of man: a consideration「24」which, if attended to as it ought, may have this good effect at least, that some check may thereby be given to those many shocking barbarities which, with such unfeeling wantonness or studied cruelty, are daily exercised towards many of those unhappy creatures that compose the brute creation.”
_______________________________
HOWLETT AND BRIMMER, PRINTERS,
FRITH STREET, SOHO.
Footnotes
† It has been said that event pigeons have not been exempted from this brutal violence.
