Cruelty to animals is a subject which has deservedly attracted
parliamentary investigation. It is not beneath the dignity of a
Christian legislator to prevent the unnecessary sufferings of the
meanest of created things; and a law which is dictated by humanity can
surely be no disgrace to the statute-book. Who that has witnessed the
barbarous and unmanly sports of the cock-pit and the stake--the
fiendlike ingenuity displayed by the lord of the creation in teaching
his dependents to torture, mangle, and destroy each other for his own
amusement--the cruelties of the greedy and savage task-master towards
the dumb labourer whose strength has decayed in his service--or the
sufferings of the helpless brute that drags with pain and difficulty its
maimed carcass to Smithfield--what reasonable being that has witnessed
all or any of this, will venture to affirm that interference is
officious and uncalled for? Yet it is certain that Mr. Martin acted
properly and wisely in excluding flies from the operation of his
act--well knowing, as he must have done, that the feeling of the
majority was decidedly averse from affording parliamentary countenance
and immunity to those descendants of the victims of Domitian's just
indignation; although it is understood that such a provision would have
been cordially supported by the advocates for universal toleration. The
simple question for consideration would be, whether the conduct and
principles of the insect species have undergone such a material change
as to entitle them to new and extraordinary enactments in their favour?
Have they entirely divested themselves of their licentious and predatory
habits, and learnt now for the first time to distinguish between right
and wrong? Do they understand what it is to commit sacrilege? To intrude
into the sanctum sanctorum of the meat-safe? To rifle and defile the
half roseate, half lily-white charms of a virgin ham? To touch with
unhallowed proboscis the immaculate lip of beauty, the unprotected scalp
of old age, the savoury glories of the kitchen? To invade with the most
reckless indifference, and the most wanton malice, the siesta of the
alderman or the philosopher? To this we answer in the eloquent and
emphatic language of the late Mr. Canning--_No_! Unamiable and
unconciliating monsters! The wildest and most ferocious inhabitants of
the desert may be reclaimed from their savage nature, and taught to
become the peaceful denizens of a menagerie--but ye are altogether
untractable and untameable. Gratitude and sense of shame, the better
parts of instinct, have never yet interposed their sacred influence to
prevent the commission of one treacherous or unbecoming action of yours.
The holy rites of hospitality are by you abused and set at naught; and
the very roof which shelters you is desecrated with the marks of your
irreverential contempt for all things human and divine. Would that--(and
the wish is expressed more in sorrow than in anger)--would that your
entire species were condensed into one enormous bluebottle, that we
might crush you all at a single swoop!
Many, calling themselves philanthropists and Christians, have omitted to
squash a fly when they had an opportunity of so doing; nay, some of
these people have even been known to go the length of writing verses on
the occasion, in which they applaud themselves for their own humane
disposition, and congratulate the object of their mistaken mercy on its
narrow escape from impending fate. There is nothing more wanting than to
propose the establishment of a Royal Humane Society for the
resuscitation of flies apparently drowned or suffocated. Can it possibly
be imagined by the man who has succeeded after infinite pains in
rescuing a greedy and intrusive insect from a gin-and-watery grave in
his own vile potations, that he has thereby consulted the happiness of
his fellow creatures, or promoted the cause of decency, cleanliness,
good order, and domestic comfort? Let him watch the career of the
mischievous little demon which he has thus been the means of restoring
to the world, when he might have arrested its progress for ever. Observe
the stout and respectable gentleman, loved, honoured, and esteemed in
all the various relations of father, husband, friend, citizen, and
Christian, who is on cushioned sofa composing himself for his wonted
nap, after a dinner in substance and quantity of the most satisfactory
description, and not untempered by a modicum of old port. His amiable
partner, with that refined delicacy and sense of decorum peculiar to the
female sex, has already withdrawn with her infant progeny, leaving her
good man, as she fondly imagines, to enjoy the sweets of uninterrupted
repose. At one moment we behold him slumbering softly as an infant--"so
tranquil, helpless, stirless, and unmoved;" in the next, we remark with
surprise sundry violent twitches and contortions of the limbs, as though
the sleeper were under the operation of galvanism, or suffering from the
pangs of a guilty conscience. Of what hidden crime does the memory thus
agitate him--breaking in upon that rest which should steep the senses in
forgetfulness of the world and its cares? On a sudden he starts from his
couch with an appearance of frenzy!--his nostrils dilated, his eyes
gleaming with immoderate excitation--an incipient curse quivering on his
lips, and every vein swelling--every muscle tense with fearful and
passionate energy of purpose. Is he possessed with a devil, or does he
meditate suicide, that his manner is so wild and hurried? With impetuous
velocity he rushes to the window, and beneath his vehement but futile
strokes, aimed at a scarcely visible, and certainly impalpable object,
the fragile glass flies into fragments, the source of future colds and
curtain lectures without number. The immediate author of so much
mischief, it is true, is the diminutive vampire which is now making its
escape with cold-blooded indifference through a very considerable
fracture in one of the panes; but surely the person who saved from
destruction, and may thus be considered to have given existence to the
cause of all this loss of temper and of property, cannot conscientiously
affirm that _his_ withers are unwrung! Mercy and forbearance are very
great virtues when exercised with proper discretion; but man owes a
paramount duty to society, with which none of the weaknesses, however
amiable, of his nature should be allowed to interfere. It is no mercy to
pardon and let loose upon the community one who, having already been
convicted of manifold delinquencies, only waits a convenient season for
adding to the catalogue of his crimes; and what is larceny, or felony,
or even treason, compared with the perpetration of the outrages above
attempted to be described?--We pause for a reply.
Summer is a most delectable--a most glorious season. We, who are fond of
basking as a lizard, and whose inward spirit dances and exults like a
very mote in the sun-beam, always hail its approach with rapture; but
our anticipations of bright and serene days--of blue, cloudless, and
transparent skies--of shadows the deeper from intensity of surrounding
light--of yellow corn-fields, listless rambles, and lassitude rejoicing
in green and sunny banks--are allayed by this one consideration, that
Waked by the summer ray, the reptile young
Come winged abroad. From every chink
And secret corner, where they slept away
The wintry storms; by myriads forth at once,
Swarming they pour.
Go where you will, it is not possible to escape these "winged reptiles."
They abound exceedingly in all sunny spots; nor in the shady lane do
they not haunt every bush, and lie perdu under every leaf, thence
sallying forth on the luckless wight who presumes to molest their
"solitary reign;" they hang with deliberate importunity over the path of
the sauntering pedestrian, and fly with the flying horseman, like the
black cares (that is to say, blue devils) described by the Roman lyrist.
Within doors they infest, harpy-like, the dinner-table--
Diripiuntque dapes, contactuque omnia foedant
Immundo--
and hover in impending clouds over the sugar basin at tea; in the pantry
it is buz; in the dairy it is buz; in the kitchen it is buz; one loud,
long-continued, and monotonous buz! Having little other occupation than
that of propagating their species, the natural consequence, as we may
learn from Mr. Malthus, is that their numbers increase in a frightfully
progressive ratio from year to year; and it has at length become
absolutely necessary that some decisive measures should be adopted to
counteract the growing evil.
Upon the whole, he would not, perhaps, be considered to speak rashly or
unadvisedly, who should affirm, that no earthly creature, of the same
insignificant character and pretensions, is the agent of nearly so much
mischief as the fly.--What a blessed order of things would immediately
ensue, if every one of them was to be entirely swept away from the face
of the earth! This most wished-for event, we fear, it will never be our
lot to witness; but it may be permitted to a sincere patriot, in his
benevolent and enthusiastic zeal for the well-being of his country, to
indulge in aspirations that are tinged with a shade of extravagance.
With respect, however, to the above mentioned vermin, the idea of their
total annihilation may not be altogether chimerical. We know that the
extirpation of wolves from England was accomplished by the commutation
of an annual tribute for a certain number of their heads; and it is well
worth the consideration of the legislature, whether, by adopting a
somewhat similar principle, they may not rid the British dominions of an
equally great and crying nuisance. The noble Duke, now at the head of
his Majesty's Government, has it in his power to add another ray to his
illustrious name, to secure the approbation and gratitude of all classes
of the community, and to render his ministry for ever memorable, by the
accomplishment of so desirable an object. In the mean time, let the
Society of Arts offer their next large gold medal to the person who
shall invent the most ingenious and destructive fly-trap. A certain
quantity of quassia might be distributed gratis at Apothecaries' Hall,
as vaccinatory matter is at the Cow-pox Hospital, with very considerable
effect; and an act of parliament should be passed without delay,
declaring the wilful destruction of a spider to be felony.--_Blackwood's
Magazine._
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