MURDEROUS MILLINERY.
We have seen what a vast amount of quite preventable suffering is
caused through the agency of the slaughterman who kills for a business,
and of the sportsman who kills for a pastime, the victims in either
case being regarded as mere irrational automata, with no higher destiny
than to satisfy the most artificial wants or the most cruel caprices
of mankind. A few words must now be said about the fur and feather
traffic--the slaughter of mammals and birds for human clothing or
human ornamentation--a subject connected on the one hand with that of
flesh-eating, and on the other, though to a less degree, with that of
sport. What I shall say will of course have no reference to wool, or
any other substance which is obtainable without injury to the animal
from whom it is taken.
It is evident that in this case, as in the butchering trade, the
responsibility for whatever wrongs are done must rest ultimately on the
class which demands an unnecessary commodity, rather than on that which
is compelled by economic pressure to supply it; it is not the man who
kills the bird, but the lady who wears the feathers in her hat, who is
the true offender. But here it will be asked, _is_ the use of furs and
feathers unnecessary? Now of course if we consider solely the present
needs and tastes of society, in regard to these matters, it must be
admitted that a sudden, unexpected withdrawal of the numberless animal
products on which our “civilization” depends would be a very serious
embarrassment; the world, as alarmists point out to us, might have to
go to bed without candles, and wake up to find itself without boots.
It must be remembered, however, that such changes do not come about
with suddenness, but, on the contrary, with the extremest slowness
imaginable; and a little thought will suggest, what experience has
already in many cases confirmed, that there is really no indispensable
animal substance for which a substitute cannot be provided, when once
there is sufficient demand, from the vegetable or mineral kingdom.
Take the case of leather, for instance, a material which is in almost
universal use, and may, under present circumstances, be fairly
described as a necessary. What should we do without leather? was, in
fact, a question very frequently asked of vegetarians during the early
and callow years of the food-reform movement, until it was found that
vegetable leather could be successfully employed in boot-making, and
that the inconsistency of which vegetarians at present stand convicted
is only a temporary and incidental one. Now of course so long as oxen
are slaughtered for food, their skins will be utilized in this way; but
it is not difficult to foresee that the gradual discontinuance of the
habit of flesh-eating will lead to a similar gradual discontinuance of
the use of hides, and that human ingenuity will not be at a loss in the
provision of a substitute. So that it does not follow that a commodity
which, in the immediate sense, is necessary now, would be absolutely or
permanently necessary, under different conditions, in the future.
My sole reason for dwelling on this typical point is that I wish to
guard myself, by anticipation, against a very plausible argument, by
which discredit is often cast on the whole theory of animals’ rights.
What can be the object, it is said, of entering on the sentimental path
of an impossible humanitarianism, which only leads into insurmountable
difficulties and dilemmas, inasmuch as the use of these various animal
substances is so interwoven with the whole system of society that it
can never be discontinued until society itself comes to an end? I
assert that the case is by no means so desperate--that it is easy to
make a right beginning now, and to foresee the lines along which future
progress will be effected. Much that is impossible in our own time may
be realized, by those who come after us, as the natural and inevitable
outcome of reforms which it now lies with us to inaugurate.
This said, it may be freely admitted that, at the outset, humanitarians
will do well to draw a practical distinction between such animal
products as are converted to some genuine personal use, and those
which are supplied for no better object than to gratify the idle whims
of luxury or fashion. The _when_ and the _where_ are considerations
of the greatest import in these questions. There is a certain
fitness in the hunter--himself the product of a rough, wild era in
human development--assuming the skins of the wild creatures he has
conquered; but it does not follow because an Eskimo, for example, may
appropriately wear fur, or a Red Indian feathers, that this apparel
will be equally becoming to the inhabitants of London or New York;
on the contrary, an act which is perfectly natural in the one case
is often a sign of crass vulgarity in the other. Hercules, clothed
triumphant in the spoils of the Nemean lion, is a subject for painter
and poet; but what if he had purchased the skin, ready dressed, from a
contemporary manufacturer?
What we must unhesitatingly condemn is the blind and reckless barbarism
which has ransacked, and is ransacking, whole provinces and continents,
without a glimmer of suspicion that the birds and quadrupeds which it
is rapidly exterminating have any other part or purpose in nature than
to be sacrificed to human vanity, that idle gentlemen and ladies may
bedeck themselves, like certain characters in the fable, in borrowed
skins and feathers. What care _they_ for all the beauty and tenderness
and intelligence of the varied forms of animal life? and what is it to
them whether these be helped forward by man in the universal progress
and evolution of all living things, or whether whole species be
transformed and degraded by the way--boiled down, like the beaver, into
a hat, or, like the seal, into a lady’s jacket?
Whatever it may be in other respects, the fur trade, in so far as it is
a supply of ornamental clothing for those who are under no necessity
of wearing fur at all, is a barbarous and stupid business. It makes
patchwork, one may say, not only of the hides of its victims, but of
the conscience and intellect of its patrons. A fur garment or trimming,
we are told, appearing to the eye as if it were one uniform piece, is
generally made up of many curiously shaped fragments. It is significant
that a society which is enamoured of so many shams and fictions, and
which detests nothing so strongly as the need of looking facts in the
face, should pre-eminently esteem those articles of apparel which are
constructed on the most deceptive and illusory principle. The story of
the Ass in the Lion’s skin is capable, it seems, of a new and wider
application.
Cruel as is all hunting of animals for their fur, there is a peculiar
callousness in the seal “fishery,” not only because the seal, far from
being a fish, is one of the most sensitive of warm-blooded animals, but
because of the atrocious methods by which the practice of “sealing” has
too often been pursued. In all the history of man’s dealings with the
lower races, there is no bloodier record than that of his treatment of
the trustful and unresisting seal.
But if the fur trade gives cause for serious reflection, what are we to
say of the still more abominable trade in feathers? Murderous, indeed,
is the millinery which finds its most fashionable ornament in the dead
bodies of birds--birds, the loveliest and most blithesome beings in
Nature! It has been said that “to enumerate all the feathers used for
ornamental purposes would be practically to give a complete list of
all known and obtainable birds.” The figures and details published by
those humane writers who have raised an unavailing protest against this
latest and worst crime of Fashion are really appalling in their stern
and naked record of unremitting cruelty.
“One dealer in London is said to have received as a single
consignment 32,000 dead humming-birds, 80,000 aquatic birds, and
800,000 pairs of wings. A Parisian dealer had a contract for 40,000
birds, and an army of murderers were turned out to supply the order.
No less than 40,000 terns have been sent from Long Island in one
season for millinery purposes. At one auction alone in London there
were sold 404,389 West Indian and Brazilian bird-skins, and 356,389
East Indian, besides thousands of pheasants and birds-of-paradise.”
The meaning of such statistics is simply that the women of Europe and
America have given an order for the ruthless extermination of birds.
It is not seriously contended in any quarter that this wholesale
destruction, effected often in the most revolting and heartless manner,
is capable of excuse or justification; yet the efforts of those who
address themselves to the better feelings of the offenders appear
to meet with little or no success. The cause of this failure must
undoubtedly be sought in the general lack of any clear conviction that
animals have rights; and the evil will never be thoroughly remedied
until not only this particular abuse, but all such abuses, and the
prime source from which such abuses originate, have been subjected to
an impartial criticism.[37]
In saying this I do not of course mean to imply that special efforts
should not be directed against special cruelties. I have already
remarked that the main responsibility for the daily murders which
fashionable millinery is instigating must lie at the door of those
who demand, rather than those who supply, these hideous and funereal
ornaments. Unfortunately the process, like that of slaughtering cattle,
is throughout delegated to other hands than those of the ultimate
purchaser, so that it is exceedingly difficult to bring home a due
sense of blood-guiltiness to the right person.
The confirmed sportsman, or amateur butcher, at least sees with his
own eyes the circumstances attendant on his “sport”; and the fact
that he feels no compunction in pursuing it is due, in most cases, to
an obtuseness or confusion of the moral faculties. But many of those
who wear seal-skin mantles, or feather-bedaubed bonnets are naturally
humane enough; they are misled by pure ignorance or thoughtlessness,
and would at once abandon such practices if they could be made
aware of the methods employed in the wholesale massacre of seals
or humming-birds. Still, it remains true that all these questions
ultimately hang together, and that no complete solution will be found
for any one of them until the whole problem of our moral relation
towards the lower animals is studied with far greater comprehensiveness.
For this reason it is perhaps unscientific to assert that any
particular form of cruelty to animals is _worse_ than another form; the
truth is, that each of these hydra-heads, the offspring of one parent
stem, has its own proper characteristic, and is different, not worse
or better than the rest. To flesh-eating belongs the proud distinction
of causing a greater bulk of animal suffering than any other habit
whatsoever; to sport, the meed of unique and unparalleled brutality;
while the patrons of murderous millinery afford the most marvellous
instance of the capacity the human mind possesses for ignoring its
personal responsibilities. To re-apply Keats’s words:
“For them the Ceylon diver held his breath,
And went all naked to the hungry shark;
For them his ears gush’d blood; for them in death
The seal on the cold ice with piteous bark
Lay full of darts; for them alone did seethe
A thousand men in troubles wide and dark;
Half ignorant, they turn’d an easy wheel,
That set sharp racks at work, to pinch and peel.”