keep the balance right and pay 20s. in the 1. You may bear it in mind, as a general fact, that this magazine produces in receipts at the most only 60% of what is necessary to cover the expenditure; this means that 8s. in the £1 has to be found somewhere and somehow. Some of our subscribers make a point of sending a shilling extra with their subscription of IS. 6d., and we are always exceedingly obliged to them; but, really you know, we place no limit upon the generosity of our friends; there is no reason why they should not send more if they choose, and we have not the slightest objection.

A lady correspondent writing from Ireland chides us on our falling-off in the illustrations; another correspondent complains that we give too many illustrations and not enough reading matter. Now, illustrations cost money, and there are such things as royalty fees on photographs, and artists' fees, besides the final cost of having the illustrations made in block form for printing purposes. That a nicely illustrated magazine is a potent attractive force I am the last person to deny, but however generous I may wish to be in this respect, I am forced to remember that the illustrations will have to be paid for, and we have not a large sum of money for them. I don't want to be always harping on this string, but our friends must remember that we are not only not extravagantly rich, we are, as a matter of fact, exceedingly poor, and the only reason I keep the Sustentation Fund open, much against my will, is that the friends who wish us success and who urge us to greater efforts to educate the public on the various forms of cruelty, may have an opportunity of assisting in that work by contributing to the sinews of war. Now, as far as this topic is concerned, I have done; this magazine is not run to put money in anyone's pocket, it is merely and solely issued in the interests of the animals who are born to suffer, and many of whom suffer till they die. It is purely a matter for those interested in the question whether we exist and prosper in our work, or whether we die out for lack of proper support. We are not going to die out just yet, and we shall not prepare for decease and burial until we have lost our last friend. Now, finally, if you have any Jubilee gifts you can send them to Mr. Ernest Bell at the address already given, and in our advertisement pages you will find a number of humane charities advertising their wants in case you should

feel a call to send them some support. The past month has been prolific in correspondence touching the Muzzling Order. As far as we are concerned the Animals' Friend has done its best in the interests of the dogs, and I can only say once more, in response to many appeals to do something, that I am infinitely more powerless in this matter than any one Member of Parliament. Please don't worry me, but worry your Member, and he, in turn, in the height of his distraction, will probably 'savage Mr. Walter Long. It is nothing short of a scandal, seeing that rabies is known to exist among foxes, that sporting dogs should be exempt from this order, but, of course, if people will only sit still and growl in helpless fashion they must expect to be treated with the contempt with which Mr. Walter Long and his Board of Agriculture are at present treating them. If I were a dogowner in a district affected by the Muzzling Order, my Member would very soon be made aware of the fact, and it would depend upon the satisfaction I got as to whether at the next election I voted and worked for or voted and worked against him. Now ladies have not votes, but many of them spend their money and their time in assisting the candidate of their party when the election occurs. Now there is not a woman of any position but what has some influence which she could exercise, at election times particularly and at other times also. Now, ladies, why not exercise it when you have the chance? Every protest sent to a Member of Parliament does good. If you object to the muzzling of your dog don't muzzle yourself by sitting still and merely complaining.

I cannot make out what has come over our friends the amateur photographers. For the second time, sorely against my will, I have to decline to make an award for the "Landscape or Seascape at Evening prize. The entries were few and did not represent the idea. The competition which closes on June 10th is for a prize of half-a-guinea for the prettiest photo of an orchard in bloom. For July a prize will be offered for a photograph of the prettiest spot in your neighbourhood or any other part of the country which may have come within the range of your camera. Now, ladies and gentlemen, this is not a difficult task, and it ought to lead to successful and picturesque results. Yours faithfully, THE EDITOR. TOR.

"Last night as I sank to slumber

In the depths of my soft, soft bed, There came to my moonlit chamber A friend who had long been dead. He parted the silken curtains,

And he took me by the hand,
And led me over the river

And into the Spirit-land.

"Oh! there it was always summer,
And there it was never night,
The lilies never were broken

And roses suffered no blight;
And there by a rainbow fountain

That sprang from the silver sand,
I found with their necks entwining,
My Doves! In the Spirit-land.

HOPE the gifted author of "Doves in Spirit-land" will pardon my quoting his sweet verses. One of my dear dovies, after being with me for eighteen years, has gone to that "Spirit-land." The portrait of the dove given over-leaf was taken as he was sitting on the back of a chair cooing. He is the most obedient and affectionate little bird imaginable. He comes when called, sits where directed, kisses and softly caresses his mistress with his beak, bows, and says "Coo-coo" to her whenever she asks him to do so. He is a model of intelligence, affection, and obedience, and yet I have read and heard that doves are supposed to be stupid birds! It is probably the humans who live with

them who do not understand how to train them.

I have read that in Russia, doves or pigeons are considered sacred on account of their symbolizing the Holy Spirit; and that therefore they are never killed. I would that it were so in Christian England, and then we should be spared the shameful scenes of Hurlingham, where tame doves or pigeons (emblems of the Holy Spirit), are fired at, mutilated and wounded by idle men, whilst fashionable women look on and applaud! Do they (the women) never pity the helpless victims, the poor pretty birds in their terror and agony? An ancient book says that the dove loves man's dwelling-house and to be in man's company, that it quickly forgets and forgives injuries, that it is very faithful to its mate, and that when separated from its love it sits solitary

and coos and mourns, and will not be comforted. I read that the several species of doves are the wood-pigeon, the tame pigeon, the ring dove, or turtle, the Picaipinima, and the St. Thomas's pigeon. The two last are natives of America, the Picaipinima being the grey and black dove with a white breast, and the St. Thomas's pigeon being the Columba with yellow legs.

Ouida, in one of her crusades against the cruelties of the present day, speaks of the absence in the average man of any noble sentiment of pity for a weak and defenceless creature, the utter want of chivalrous feeling to protect the suffering, or to rescue the oppressed. She says, "If in a mob of Londoners, Parisians, New Yorkers, a dove fluttered down to seek a refuge, a hundred dirty hands would be stretched out to seize it and wring its neck, and if any one tried to save and cherish it, he would be rudely mocked and hustled amidst the brutal guffaws of roughs."

The

A friend of mine who spent some of this winter at Monte Carlo, tells me that it was quite heart-breaking to see the wounded, bleeding pigeons huddled up on her balcony, after the Englishmen's "sport!" at the pigeon shooting. little "gamins" of the place follow the example of their betters (?) and run after, teaze and torture the maimed pigeons as they flutter away from the enclosure where the fashion and élite (?) of the world amuse themselves by maiming and wounding little birds!

E.

*

MR. HENRY HARBEN, J.P., has consented to preside at a Festival Dinner in aid of the funds of the HOME of REST for HORSES, to be held at the Hotel Cecil, on Saturday, the 26th instant.

66

"DR. JAMES MARTINEAU," says the London correspondent of the Manchester Guardian, I writing to certain opponents of vivisection, says that his sympathies are very much with poor animals and their defenders. He does not, however, see how it is possible to secure by law the total abolition of all experiments on all animals, though at the same time he would condemn all experiments of the nature objected to when undertaken merely for the purpose of teaching or demonstration. Dr. Martineau, who dictated the letter to his daughter, has, I regret to say, been confined to bed several days with a cold."

Ar the annual meeting of the VICTORIA STREET ANTI-VIVISECTION SOCIETY, which was too late (May 21st) for us to give a full report, an announcement was made that the Committee had before them a scheme for the reorganization of the Society with a view to make the Committee more representative. The main features we hear are that the chief authority shall be vested in a Permanent Central Council, and the Executive Committee shall be elected annually by ballot from members of the Society, and shall include representatives from affiliated societies. We think this step will meet with general approval, and hope it may soon be an accomplished fact.

THE CHURCH SOCIETY for the PROMOTION of KINDNESS to ANIMALS held its annual meeting at Stafford House on April 29th, the Dean of Winchester presiding. One of the speakers, who was a licensed vivisector, went out of his way to defend the muzzling order, and a resolution was passed that the order should be extended in the country. Well, indeed, might the animals pray to be saved from their champions and friends of the Church Society. We much regret that this Society has taken so low a standard. Kindness may be better than the reverse, but we are now growing out of the stage for condescending kindness and mercy. What we now demand is justice. The alteration of the one word in the title of the Society would convict the promoters of their inconsistency, and at once raise them on to a higher plane.

THE ANTI-BEARING-REIN ASSOCIATION, which was started in 1890 as a local Society for Hampstead, has been reconstituted under the Presidency of Sir W. H. Flower, K. C. B., F.R.S., etc., and will now be national in its work. In its more limited sphere it has done admirable work, having induced over thirty coal companies in London to discontinue the use of the bearing-rein. The Hampstead Vestry also abolished the rein, not only on their own horses, but also on those of their contractors, and the London County Council has also taken

MISS EMMA E. PAGE, National Organizer and Lecturer for the Mercy Department, W.C.T.U., writes from Olympia, Washington, April 6th, 1897-" Two years ago the Legislature of the State of Washington enacted a law for Systematic Mercy Teaching in the schools, and this year they have given us an AntiVivisection law prohibiting vivisection in all the schools of the State, except medical schools. Our State Superintendent of Public Instruction, F. J. Brown, Esq., is in full sympathy with these advanced laws, and much will be made of the new branch, Kindness,' as well as of the scientific Temperance instruction. Under his administration, Washington boys and girls are going to have improved chances for true manhood and womanhood." Miss Page adds that she thinks English friends might like to know the above, and that the Animals' Friend is one of her good helpers.

6

LONDON HORSES.

AN important and largely attended public meeting, organized by the HUMANITARIAN LEAGUE, to consider what practical steps could be taken to improve the treatment of London horses, was held at St. Martin's Town Hall on May 5th. Colonel Charles Colville (a director of the London Road Car Company) presided. Colonel W. Lisle B. Coulson proposed:

66

That, in the opinion of this meeting, it is desirable that the London police should be instructed to act more promptly and on their own initiative when they witness any ill-usage of horses by flogging and overloading in the streets." The police, he said, did not wait in a case of thieving, and he did not, therefore, see why they should wait in the case of cruelty to animals. Individually he believed the police would be glad to act more often than they did, but there was a certain lukewarmness amongst those who controlled them, and the magistrates did not give sufficient encouragement to them in the punishments they inflicted. After a discussion the resolution was agreed to. It was also resolved that a deputation from the meeting should wait on the Chief Commissioner of Police for the purpose of calling his attention to the resolution. Mr. W. Scott-Scott (Hon. Secretary of the Horse Accident Preventive Society) moved : "That, in view of the many accidents caused to horses by slippery pavements, this meeting expresses the hope that all London vestries will pay particular regard to the question of paving, and will altogether discontinue the use of asphalte." We reproduce on another page the substance of the speech of Miss Edith Ward, who moved the third resolution con demning the use of the bearing-rein and the

fashion of docking horses as cruel and barbarous. We had hoped to have given Mr. Scott-Scott's speech also, but it did not arrive in time.

ANNUAL MEETING OF BIRMINGHAM SOCIETIES.

The Midland Association for the Promotion of Kindness to Animals, and the Birmingham Home for Lost Dogs, held their annual meeting jointly at the Grand Hotel, Birmingham, on April 13th. Mr. C. E. Mathews, Clerk of the Peace for the city of Birmingham, presided. There were also present Mr. W. Z. Marston, Chairman of the Dogs' Home Committee; Mr. Percy Lea, Hon. Treasurer; Lieut.-Gen. A. Phelps, Miss Southall, Hon. Sec. M.A.P.K.A.; Miss Richards, Hon. Sec. King's Heath Antivivisection Society; Mr. George Barrow, Mr. J. E. Baker, Alderman Clayton, Mr. and Mrs. R. Price, Mr. W. L. Sheffield, Mr. H. Ball, Secretary S.P.C.A.; Mrs. A. C. Osler, Mrs. A. Browett, Mrs. Marston, Mrs. Cozens-Brooke, Miss Baker, Mr. and Mrs. Griffiths, and many others.

Mr. W. J. MARSTON read the annual report of the Dogs' Home. The number of dogs received during the year ending March 31st was 4,334. Of these 257 were restored to their owners, and homes found for 487. Over 300 dogs had been put to death for their owners, and 58" boarders" had been received.

GENERAL PHELPS read the report of the Midland Association, which referred to the great loss the Society had sustained by the decease of Miss Julia Goddard. Four hundred names had been obtained to the petition against the granting of a licence to the Chelsea Institute, among which were those of four doctors. A lecture by Mrs. Charles Mallet had been delivered in September, 1896, and Mr. T. A. Williams had paid two visits to the neighbourhood with good results. The Animals' Friend and other publications of the Victoria Street Society had been largely distributed during the year. In consequence of terrible accounts of cruelty in the Canary Islands an edition of the Humanity Cards had been prepared in Spanish, and would shortly be ready for publication. During 1896 277 circulars had been sent out to clergymen and ministers asking that they would annually bring the duty of kindness to animals before their congregations, and sixty favourable replies had been received.

The CHAIRMAN, in moving the adoption of the reports, commended the work carried on by the two Societies, and advocated the teaching of humanity to school children. He appealed for the protection of wild birds, and protested against the shooting of rare specimens.

Mrs. OSLER, who seconded the resolution, declared that it was often ignorance rather than vanity which led women to encourage this cruelty by wearing the plumage of birds upon their hats.

Miss RICHARDS reported on the work done by the King's Heath Anti-vivisection Society. The officers of the Midland Association and Dogs' Home were re-elected, and a vote of thanks passed to the Chairman for presiding.