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LL lovers of the animal world must ever be grateful to Mr. Rudyard Kipling for the creation of his 66 Mowgli." Dropping his human nature just a little below the man-level, and taking instead one or two beastcharacteristics, Mowgli has happily unlocked the closed doors which keep man and beast apart, and has opened to the eyes of Our imagination a whole world of animal life, with living powers of observation of the ways of God's creatures, and a freshness of sympathy with their nature. Mowgli is a bright protest against all wrong-doing towards our humbler brethren; he compels us to awaken our sluggish imaginations; and it is only by a free imagination that man learns to understand and interpret the nature of those who live on another level. With him we live not dully in one dimension, but in two or, it may be, three dimensions; and are enlarged accordingly. We shall begin to understand our brethren of the outer circle, seeing them rather more clearly as from their own point of view; we shall begin to appreciate their intelligence, and the rudimentary laws of their life; we shall appreciate their service in the economy of God's world, so much obscured by the selfishness of sport; we shall be more grateful to them for their willing friendship and true service, which we too often exact harshly, and without thanks.

It is only by thus lowering ourselves that we shall win a true fellow-feeling with the inferior world; and shall become sensitive that justice may be done to them. Not treating man's nature as so much above them, we shall refuse to allow man's selfishness to have its way; we shall never venture to maltreat the animal world, under the hypocritical profession that we are extending man's knowledge, and sacrificing them that their pain may work out our health; the so-called discoveries for man's benefit are little if anything more than the reproduction, at any cost of misery, of facts well known, such as the circulation of the blood, or action of nerves, and the like, to enliven their lectures, and

interest and harden their students. It is not at this price of suffering that true. knowledge is advanced; man has no right to be the tyrant, because he alone combines strength of mind and body.

The true relation between man and the beasts beside him, I once heard given by a carter in Denmark. My friends were admiring the beauty of his team, their gentleness and friendship for him; and. they told him how they rejoiced at his evident kindness towards them. Well," he replied, "how could one do otherwise; is not Man the God of the horse?" Yes; here we stand with upward and downward nerves of relation; with the spiritual world above, of which we can but discern in part; and under us the creatures to whom our acts, orders, thoughts, are in their turn but dimly understood. From the upper strain we must gather spiritual affinities, and nobler powers; and then we may indeed become "the God of the horse." Otherwise, if we only can realise the intellectual supremacy of man, a cold and cutting force, which turns the whole world into a purveyor for his selfishness, we shall find no entrance into those blessed fields in which, as in the works of the old poetic painters, man strays at peace with all God's creatures, under the light of the sun. This intellectual lordship must be illuminated by the spiritual gift; then we shall understand what is our relation towards the sad creation as it groans and moves along, with the harsh creaking and efforts of the whirling spheres, as if it were blind and all unconscious of God.

It is this higher side of human possibilities, akin no doubt to mere emotion, sneered at as weak "sentimentalism," which saves the world. Once see that "Man is the God of the horse," the world becomes beautiful and bright! The horse has come to be our willing friend; he is no more a beast of burden; we come to understand the creature; we rule him with gentle firmness; we penetrate his thoughts; for a good horse has many thoughts, at least as rational as those of many of his masters have we not often known the horse supply the lack due to the man's ignorance?

And this friendship exists with other creatures too; the Collie shows us how close dog-intelligence lies to human power of thought and expression.

There is another point; man is the only one of God's creatures who has the faculty of sinking as well as of rising; it is the chief element in our religion; and forms the burden of our responsibilities. And this danger of sinking we hand on to familiar animals, and may clearly lower them in the scale of creation. Of themselves the creatures have little of this rising and falling quality. No animal, for example, falls below his nature so badly as a drunken man does, or as a vicious selfish fellow, who lives only for his lower self; yet it is clear that we can, by unwise petting, or by pressing our selfish aims, bring the poor creatures down-who shall say that a ratting terrier is as good a character as a faithful sheep dog! When we see a wheezy fat pug-dog with its illtempered conceit, or a spiteful pet cat, whose natural selfishness has been encouraged by a foolish mistress, or a horse with temper ruined by some brute of a groom, we soon begin to understand the process of degradation of life. If man becomes the devil to his horse, he can easily arouse all the latent badness of its disposition. There, too, our evil communications inevitably spoil good manners.

And through carelessness, accident, or unintentional mistakes we may easily do the poor creatures a mischief. We once had a rather absurd proof of this. One fine spring day my people were amusing themselves in one of Mr. Ruskin's sailing boats on Coniston water, tacking from side to side in a gentle breeze. As they came close to the village side of the lake, there were sheep and spring lambs in the green field which stretched down to the water's edge; and one lamb came down to the margin, attracted by the boat, as she slowly put about. To their astonishment they saw the little creature enter the water and set off towards them. By this time the sails had filled, and the boat was beginning to glide away. But when they saw the lamb well away from the shore, they lowered sail, and put about again to save the labouring swimmer. They happily reached him when, pulled down by the weight of water in his fleece, he seemed just about to go under. So they lifted him into the boat, and dried him in a corner of the sail, where he lay quite content and at peace in the warm sunlight, while they looked for a place at which they might put

him ashore. Meanwhile, the anxious mother, missing the darling, was running up and down, calling for him; and when the lamb was set ashore, it ran off gaily to the mother, hungry after the adventure, and demanding his usual refreshment. But the mother sniffed at him, and finding that the bath had utterly washed all the smell out of him, would not believe it was her child, entirely refused to acknowledge him or give him his supper, and trotted off without paying him the slightest attention, disappearing in the heart of the flock, while the disconsolate lamb was left hungrily bleating and looking eagerly for the hard-hearted mother. We never knew whether she became reconciled to her clean and sweet baby, or whether the poor thing had to starve till it grew dirty and recovered its ancient odour. We had unwittingly Sown dissension between mother and child; a blind interference with animal habits had not had a happy end like zealous vicars' wives, we had offended the parents by insisting on having the little one washed and clean, while they resented the trouble of having to make their boys presentable. Just as we are often rather offended with God, if He is pleased to send us some sharp lesson for our good; and our chastened spirits do not bear the improvement patiently.

In all these matters, the slow advance, the fitting our higher intelligence to the animals' slower capacity, the gift of feeling and creating sympathy by stooping a bit from our high hill-top to become comrades with our poor friends, in all these we have to learn a little of Mowgli's art, who ruled his animal kingdom with insight and patience, and taught them how the higher intelligence could befriend and help them. Why should man drop below his place and become a tyrant over the animal world? He gains nothing thereby, and misses the joy of understanding his creatures and of holding real converse with them. With perseverance man can become the exponent of his humbler friends, and can, as Rudyard Kipling has done, interpret their life and nature to the delight of all the world. A man who takes the trouble to be in touch with his living surroundings, wins something of the delight which the painter enjoys in interpreting nature to the rest of us. He has found out that love is the secret of life, and that it is the dearest and best thing that God has given to man. G. W. KITCHIN. Deanery, Durham, March 13, 1897.

HIS hospital, which is probably the only

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one of its kind in the world, and is certainly the only one on such an elaborate scale, is an institution which cannot fail to interest and command the approval of all those who have the welfare of the animal creation at heart.

The animals that suffer in the service of man are especially benefited by its work, and in every way the hospital serves to render fully effective the work of the S.P.C.A. in Bombay, both in the prevention and allevia tion of animal suffering.

The secretary of the Bombay S.P.C.A., Mr. Kavasji Mervanji Shroff, readily responded to my wish to visit the hospital, and appointed a day when he himself would show me over the wards and buildings at Parel.

A drive of forty minutes from the fort brought me to the extensive compound in which these buildings are situated, and I found Mr. Shroff awaiting me in his office.

Before setting out upon our round of inspection I had a few preliminary inquiries to make, suggested by the Report of the Institution I had been reading.

I had gathered that the great majority of the patients treated were bullocks and cows. Now it is a common belief among Europeans, that notwithstanding the religious reverence of Hindus for cattle and animal life, they are indifferent to suffering in animals so long as the life is preserved, and that they practise cruelty upon working bullocks especially without remorse of any kind. Mr. Shroff, in reply to inquiries under this head, said that the religious reverence certainly prevents wilful injury to cattle to a great extent, but that ignorance and home treatment of diseases were the cause of much unnecessary suffering. Working bullocks, however, were sometimes treated cruelly by ignorant and low-caste Maratti Hindus, but even they would not wilfully injure cows. The Gujerati Hindus would never cause suffering to bullocks or cows except perhaps by crude or ignorant treatment for disease. The same might be said of Parsis, who in common with the Hindus will not eat the flesh of cattle, and this custom has not been imposed upon them in India, but was brought with them from Persia.

My next query was as to the most common