_To the Editor of the Every-Day Book._
Dear Sir,
A great deal has been lately attempted, by men of feeling minds, to
prevent wanton cruelty towards animals; which (unhappily even in this
enlightened age,) is but too prevalent.
The lower class of persons, to whom the care of the horse is intrusted,
frequently possess less sense than those noble animals, which groan
under their tyranny; we constantly find ignorant farriers, who think
that a cure can only be effected, by most violent and painful remedies.
It is to these brutal men, that the lameness of so many horses may be
attributed; for, not understanding the beautiful and singular
construction of the interior of a horse’s foot, by cutting away the hoof
they contract the foot, and gradually prevent the elasticity so
necessary: thus by repeated shoeing, the foot is cramped, as much so, as
a man’s who would attempt to walk in a shoe considerably too tight for
him. Lameness ensues, and these farriers pronounce the seat of lameness
any where but where it actually exists; then comes firing and
blistering, and every possible torture, and the poor animal lamed for
life, long before his time, is consigned to the lowest drudgery, and
subsequently to the dogs.
The inhuman rate at which horses are driven in stage coaches, conduces
greatly to mortality; this consumption of animal life is, in some
instances, one in three annually.
Soame Jenyns, whose works are well known, and who was himself a man of
the finest feelings, in a paper _On Cruelty to Animals_, adverts to the
disciples of Pythagoras, who held that the souls of men, and all other
animals, existed in a state of perpetual transmigration, and that when
by death they were dislodged from one corporeal habitation, they were
immediately reinstated in another, happier or more miserable, according
to their behaviour in the former. Soame Jenyns favours this doctrine of
transmigration, “first, from its justice; secondly, from its utility;
and lastly, from the difficulty we lie under to account for the
sufferings of many innocent creatures without it.” He says, “If we look
around us, we cannot but observe a great and wretched variety of this
kind; numberless animals subjected by their own natures to many
miseries, and by our cruelties to many more, _incapable of crimes_, and
_consequently incapable of deserving them_, called into being, as far as
we can discover, only to be miserable for the service or diversion of
others less meritorious than themselves, without any possibility of
preventing, deserving, or receiving recompense for their unhappy lot, if
their whole existence is comprehended in the narrow and wretched circle
of their present life.” He then proceeds to observe, that “the theory
here inculcated, removes all these difficulties, and reconciles all
these seemingly unjust dispensations, with the strictest justice. It
informs us, that their sufferings may by no means be understood, but as
the just punishments of their former behaviour, in a state, where by
means of their vices, they may have escaped them. It teaches us, that
the pursued and persecuted fox, was once probably some crafty and
rapacious minister, who had purchased by his ill acquired wealth, that
safety, which he cannot now procure by his flight; that the bull, baited
with all the cruelties that human ingenuity, or human malevolence can
invent, was once some relentless tyrant, who had inflicted all the
tortures which he endures; that the poor bird, blinded, imprisoned, and
at last starved to death in a cage, may have been some unforgiving
creditor; and the widowed turtle, pining away life for the loss of her
mate, some fashionable wife, rejoicing at the death of her husband,
which her own ill-usage had occasioned. Never can the delicious repast
of roasted lobsters excite my appetite, whilst the ideas of the tortures
in which those innocent creatures have expired present themselves to my
imagination. But when I consider that they must have once probably been
Spaniards at Mexico, or Dutchmen at Amboyna, I fall to, with a good
stomach and a good conscience. Never can I repose myself with
satisfaction in a post chaise, whilst I look upon the starved,
foundered, accelerated, and excoriated animals which draw it, as mere
horses, condemned to such unmerited torments for my convenience, but I
reflect, they must have undoubtedly existed in the fathers of the holy
inquisition. I very well know that these sentiments will be treated as
ludicrous by many of my readers, but they are in themselves just and
serious, and carry with them the strongest probability of their truth.
So strong is it, that I cannot but hope it will have some good effect on
the conduct of those polite people, who are too sagacious, learned, and
courageous to be kept in awe by the threats of hell and damnation; and I
exhort every fine lady to consider, how wretched will be her condition,
if after twenty or thirty years spent at cards, in elegant rooms, kept
warm by good fires and soft carpets, she should at last be obliged to
change places with one of her coach horses; and every fine gentleman to
reflect, how much more wretched would be his, if after wasting his
estate, his health, and his life in extravagance, indolence, and luxury,
he should again revive in the situation of one of his creditors.”
Besides Jenyns’s suppositions, allow me to notice the crimping of fish,
the skinning of eels alive, the whipping of pigs to death, to make them
tender, the boiling of live crabs, having first put them in cold water
to make them lively; together with the preference given to hunted hares,
on account of their delicacy of muscles, softened by worry and exertion.
These are but too common instances of a barbarous taste.
At this season of enjoyment and leisure, when we derive pleasure from
contemplating the beautiful forms and appearances of nature, and are
grateful for annual abundance, let us reflect on the criminal
heedlessness wherewith we allow our appetites and pleasures to be
indulged, by needless sufferings in the animals we subdue to our wants
and whims. While we endeavour to inculcate kindness in our children
towards one another, let us teach them kindness to the meanest of
created beings. I know that the _Every-Day Book_ widely circulates in
families; the humane sentiments that pervade it, must therefore have
considerable influence, and for this reason I select it as a channel for
conveying a humane suggestion.