Man's Gruelty to God's Greatures. BY W. GORDON STABLES, M.D., C.M. (Surgeon, Royal Navy.) (Author of "Our Humble Friends and Fellow Mortals," and many books on Dogs, Cats, Birds, etc., etc., their Ailments and Treatment). TH HE very first remark I shall make in this short paper may give offence to some. For that I care not. Those whom the truth offends may turn aside and tread the flowery lanes of falsehood and fiction. I wish then I had the fervid eloquence and trumpet-tongue of John Knox to proclaim that we Christians, or rather the quasi-Christians amongst us, are far, far too self-conceited. The earth was made for them forsooth, the sun shines for them alone, and the beautiful moon was just stuck up there for their sole benefit. It does throw a flood of light across field and orchard certainly, thus enabling the bat and the owl to find their prey, and so keeping up the balance of nature as ordained by God. But they these quasi-Christians-cannot help that, it is their moon and their sun, even if the lower animals, as they sneeringly call them, do happen to share in the rays thereof. God does not care very much for anything except themselves, though they believe that somewhere in Scripture even the sparrows are kindly mentioned by our Saviour. Yes, and the selfconceited doctrine that everything was made to minister to man's comfort is even encouraged, negatively at all events, by the pulpit. Deny it who dare! For twenty years and more have I fought the battle of God's suffering creatures, but never yet have I heard a sentence fall from the lips of a clergyman-certainly not a sermoninculcating kindness to animals as one of the duties of the true-hearted and sincere Christian. Nevertheless scores of ministers and parsons are themselves lovers not only of our domestic animals, but of every creature that flies, or creeps, or crawls. They are bound, however, to obey their superiors, and keep man floating in the dark and dirty sea of his own self-conceitedness. And their hearers-why, ere now I have felt inclined to strike the ostentatiously displayed prayer-books from their hands as they strolled complacently along the road; tell them to go home and feed their starving cats and dogs. Out on such Christians I cry! Fie on such Christianity, and on those who profess it. As far as kindness to animals is concerned, the beautiful religion of the Buddhists puts ours entirely in the shade, and truthfully indeed may they say that Christianity is the hell of the lower animals. In this little paper I can bring but one or two animals as object-lessons before the mental vision of my readers. Take dogs first. I cannot write without a feeling of anger and disgust against the massacres of innocent dogs going on every day in our great Metropolis, within hearing and sight of a population as lethargic and selfish as the Turks themselves. Nearly 100,000 faithful, loving dogs have already been sacrificed since the cowardly scare commenced. The dogs are not even accorded a painless death. In the Isle of Man brutal fellows are told off to strangle them, the cruellest death of all. Half an hour, often longer, of awful agony is the reward a poor dog often receives for a life spent in devotion to brutal man. But is such fearful means of destruction necessary? No, nor destruction of any kind. Rabies is a bogey, made up by the police, by doctors of the vivisection school, and by dog-haters to scare an all too-nervous and on the whole a cowardly British public. I can testify, I can swear, for I have studied the subject for years, that not one in a thousand of so-called mad dogs is rabid. Nor is there one medical man in a thousand, nor one policeman or magistrate in a million, who can diagnose a case of canine rabies. This is strong language, I confess, but I make no statement that I am unable to prove. He is a poor journalist who brings all his army to the front at first and keeps not reserves in the rear that shall turn the tide of battle in his favour. As to the muzzling order: it is as useless as it is cruel-I will not say brutal, I would not insult the brute creation, because as a rule they are far more kindhearted and considerate to each other, and even to their arch-foe mankind, than ever we are to them. Indeed, if the cruelty or thoughtlessness that is at present rampant in our midst lasts for but another two hundred years, not only will horses, dogs, and cats be rare, but trees and birds. Those who come after us will walk on cinders in a black and treeless, birdless Britain. Hydrophobia is as great a bogey as rabies. It is kept up by the gross ignorance of unqualified country vets., a gutter-snipe press, and the idiocy of our bonnie Board of Agriculture. Ignorance and cruelty and cowardice are to blame for the mad dog scare, and for the sins of vivisection. I maintain that this latter and the institutes that support it, are a disgrace to any nation that calls itself Christian, or prates of civilization. But what useful ends are served by so damnable an institution as that at Chelsea, or the one for India? It is horrible to think and know that those in the vicinity of such places cannot sleep at night for the moaning or piteous cries for mercy of these tortured creatures. Granting for a moment for the sake of hypothesis that some facts in physiology are elucidated at the expense of such agony to our humble friends and fellow mortals, does this warrant the vivisectionists all over the country to keep on month after month experimenting for the sake of students, who, but for the hardened cruelty of their teachers, would be content to take the facts for granted? No one, I dare say, would deny that vivisection and the torture of poor animals, whose groaning appeals to the hearts of even children, hardens the natures of those engaged therein. And now let me tell you something, readers, which may probably appeal to you. Many of these vivisectionists, who work not only at institutes but in private laboratories, cannot afford not to be seen at church on Sundays. Oh, no; their practices might suffer. Not only must they pose as savants, but as Christians. They give to the poor and lend to the Lord, though they may believe in neither. I have seen one of these fellows at a country church reading the lessons, the blood of a dog that he had left fastened to his dissecting table showing red beneath his ill-trimmed finger nails! The service over he would hurry back to the laboratory to complete his vile experiments. Is human life worth all this hellish torture? This is a question these men dare not answer if told that in future years human beings will cover the face of the earth as rabbits do now in Australia, and thus they will be reduced to cannibalism and chemistry to support a wretched existence. Think of that! Difference of Action in Poisons upon Man THE and the Lower HE following fact, narrated in the autobiography of Richard Lovell Edgeworth, is presented to medical men who advocate the experimenting on animals to discover the effect of poisons on the human system. At the famous trial of Donellan, who was convicted of having poisoned Sir Theodosius Boughton with laurel water, one medical witness stated that such a quantity of this water as would kill a dog instantly might be swallowed by a man without any material inconvenience. This assertion was much questioned, both at the trial and afterwards. At a meeting of a society composed of eminent men in literature and science, one of the members attacked it with great vehemence, and went so far as to say that the opinion was fabricated for the occasion of the trial of Donellan. A very unbecoming scene began, which fortunately was interrupted by Mr. Edgeworth, who was then presiding, calling upon two members of the club to witness that they had heard this medical gentleman relate, ten years before the trial, that he had himself Animals. swallowed as much laurel water as would have killed twenty dogs. Mr. Edgeworth added that he had seen at an anatomical lecture at Oxford the death of a dog by the injection of a single drop of laurel water. The assailant was quickly put down by this evidence. The simple fact that the statement had been made by this medical witness, and communicated to the society many years previous to Donellan's trial, proved that it could not have been fabricated for the occasion, as had been asserted. The society referred to by Mr. Edgeworth used to meet once a week at Jack's Coffee House, and afterwards in Slaughter's Coffee House, in London. Among its members were Sir Joseph Banks, Dr. Solander, Sir C. Blagden, Dr. Fordyce, Captain Cook, Maskelyne, Smeaton, Lord Mulgrave, Ramsden the optician, and others of eminence in various departments of science and art. This was in a generation previous to the famous club of which Dr. Johnson was the central figure. The facts recorded by Mr. Edgeworth may well Copyright] Copyright] be where we are rather than in a room by himself, and follows us everywhere, even to IN THE DRAWING ROOM. [Photo by E. M. Beeby. the bedrooms. Sometimes he will slip in like a mouse at a narrow crack of window, and perched [E. M. Beeby ON THE KITCHEN DRESSER. becomes very uneasy and calls him with a melancholy piping note. He always prefers to on the window seat, give us a sweet song in those fine robin notes that are so deli. cate as to be almost lost, unless at the same time the movements of the small bill and throat are observed; or he will fly from place to place uttering quick conversational chirps and dropping noiselessly on the table will pick up the crumbs placed there for him. He likes to be talked to; but he is still, alas! in fear of the camera, and only by some very tempting morsel can he be induced to sit for his portrait. Cheese, butter, and pudding are his favourite foods (in a vegetarian house. hold), and it is a very astonishing sight to see quite a large lump of butter disappear into that tiny bill. After such a repast he will casually clean his beak on a gilt picture frame. He is our dear and welcome friend, and it would be difficult to express the anxiety we feel if he be absent for a few hours-as occasionally happens-and we are in doubt as to his safety. It is Dur hope that Spring will find him nesting here, and that by next winter he will still remember old friends. E. M. BEEBY Worplesden, Surrey, November, 1896. B 2 |