# On the Conduct of Man to Inferior Animals/Contents

ON THE PRIMEVAL STATE OF MAN.
ever by primeval man, were violated the rights of hospitality; never, in his innocent bosom, arose the murderous meditation; never, against the life of his guests, his friends, or his benefactors, did he uplift the butcher axe. Sufficient were the fruits of the earth for his subsistence; and, satisfied with the milk of her maternal bosom, he sought not, like a preverse child, to spill the blood of nature. Such were the feasts of primeval innocence, such the felicity of the golden age. Long since, alas! are those happy days elapsed. That they ever did exist, is a doubt with the depravity of the present day; and so unlike are they to our actual state of misery, that the story of primal bliss is numbered with the dreams of visionary bards. That such a state did exist, the concording voice of various tradition offers a convincing proof; and the lust of knowledge, is the fatal cause to which the indigenous tale of every country, attributes the loss of Paradise, and the fall of man. [The felicity of the golden age is still, at certain intervals, celebrated in the East Indies, at the temples of Jaggernat and Mamoon. During those seasons of festivity the several casts mix together indiscriminately, in commemoration of the perfect equality that prevailed among mankind in the age of innocence.]
The merciful Hindoo makes humanity to animals apart of his religious duties. No nation, equally ​numerous, exists, which acts with equal propriety and justice. The generous and enlightened Hindoo, diffues over every order of life his affections; beholds, in every creature, a kinsman; rejoices in the welfare of every animal, and compassionates his pains; for he is convinced, that the essence of all creatures is the same, and that one eternal First Cause is the Father of all. Hence the merciful Hindostan is solicitous to save every species of animal, while the cruel vanity and exquisite voraciousness of other nations are ingenious to discover in the bulk, or taste, or smell, or beauty of every creature, a cause of death, an incentive to murder. The religion of the Hindoos is the most extensive and ancient of all religions now existing, a religion of the most polished, improved, and populous of the eastern nations. The accounts we have of it, in its present state of declension, are such as engage our esteem and reverence, tho' conveyed to us through very polluted channels. The followers of Brama are, for the most part, meek and patient sufferers under savage and bigoted Mahometans; who, in their turn, are oppressed by cruel, tho' not bigoted Christians: so that our accounts of the Hindoos come from plunderers, who receive them from those whom they immediately oppress. It therefore requires great precision, to determine what degree of credit ought to be given to informations thus derived. We may be well assured, that no misrepresentation takes place in favour of the ancient and oppressed followers of Brama.
Sir William Temple, in his Essay on Learning, says that "Their moral philosophy consisted chiefly in preventing all diseases or distempers of the body, from which they esteemed the perturbation of mind in a great measure to arise; then in composing the ​mind, and exempting it from all anxious cares; esteeming the troublesome and solicitous thoughts about past and future, to be like so many dreams, and no more to be regarded. They despised both life and death, pleasure and pain, or at least thought them perfectly indifferent. Their justice was exact and exemplary; their temperance so great, that they lived on rice and herbs, and upon nothing that had sensitive life. If they fell sick, they counted it such a mark of intemperance, that they would frequently die out of shame and sullenness; but many lived a hundred and fifty, and some two hundred years."
It appears from the Mosaic records, that for more than 1600 years, even till after the deluge, mankind lived on vegetable food only; they exercised a gentle dominion over the brute creation, and did not use their flesh for food. They had indeed a prescribed regimen. "Every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of the earth and every tree in which is the fruit of a tree, yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat."—Genesis i, 29. That nothing but vegetable food was eaten before the flood, appears from the command to Noah, relating to provisions to be laid up in the ark. "And take thou unto thee of all food that is eaten, and thou shalt gather it to thee; and it shall be for food for thee, and for them. Gen. vi. 21. The ancient Greeks lived entirely on the fruits of the earth.—See Porphyrius de Abstinentia, book 4, par. 2. The ancient Syrians abstained from every species of animal food.—See ibid. b. 4, par, 15. By the laws of Triptolemus, the Athenians were strictly commanded to abstain from all living creatures.—See Porphyr. Even so late as the days of Draco, the Attic oblations consisted only of the fruits of the earth.—See Potter's Antiquities of Greece, vol. i. p. 188 ​Cow's milk, which is still in most general use, was included among the principal articles of diet, in very remote ages. Homer mentions a nation who principally lived on cow's milk.
ON THE CONDUCT OF MAN TO INFERIOR ANIMALS.
Long after habitual cruelty had almost erased from the mind of man every mark of affection for the inferior ranks of his fellow-creatures, a certain respect was still paid to the principle of life, and the crime of murdered innocence was, in some degree, atoned by the decent regard which was paid to the mode of their destruction.
⸻Gentle friends, let's kill him boldly, but not wrathfully; let's carve him as a dish fit for the Gods, not hew him as a carcase fit for hounds: and let our hearts, as subtle masters do, stir up their servants to an act of rage, and after seem to chide them.—Shakespere.
Such was the decency with which, at first, the devoted victims were put to death. But when man became perfectly civilized, those exterior symbols of opinions, with which he was now but feebly, if at all, impressed, were also laid aside. Animals were formerly sacrificed with some decorum to the plea of necessity, but are now with unceremonious brutality destroyed, to gratify the unfeeling pride or wanton cruelty of men. Broad barefaced butchery occupies every walk of life; every element is ransacked for victims; the most remote corners of the globe are ravished of their inhabitants, whether by the fastidious gluttony of man their flesh is held grateful to the ​palate, whether their blood can impurple the pall of his pride, or their spoils add a feather to the wings of his vanity: and while agonizing nature is tortured by his ambition, while to supply the demands of his perverse appetite she bleeds at every pore, this imperial animal exclaims, 'Ye servile creatures! why do ye lament? why vainly try, by cries akin to the voice of human woe, to excite my compassion? Created solely for my use, submit without a murmur to the decrees of Heaven, and to the mandates of me; of me, the Heaven deputed despot of every creature that walks, or creeps, or swims, or flies; in air, on earth, or in the waters.' Thus the fate of the animal world has followed the progress of man from his sylvan state to that of civilization, till the gradual improvements of art, on this glorious pinnacle of independence, have at length placed him free from every lovely prejudice of nature, and an enemy to life and happiness through all it's various forms.—Oswald.
Proud of his superiority in the scale of existence, imperious man looks down with silent contempt oncertain animals which he deems inferior and meaner objects. Sovereign despot of the world, Lord of the life and death of every creature, with the slaves of his tyranny he disclaims the ties of kindred. He subdues by art and cunning the ferocious lion, the tyger, and the wolf, and is tributary to their dead bodies for his accoutrements of war. In this instance he acts without disguise and is consistent. His brutal ferocity returns, disdainful of the habit and controul of refinement. He prowls malignantly the woods; destroys the carnivorous animal of the desert; with the spoil he renders his person formidable to his fellows; and becomes also a murderer, by profession, of the human race. Were the ferocity of man thus ​circumscribed, it would appear temperate and the retaliation just; but he destroys also those which are exceedingly inferior to him in strength, which are far remote from his dwelling, and which never injured him. The sable and martin are murdered for the unfortunate adornment of their furs; and the civet and musk, for the superiority of their perfumes.
While the feathers of the ostrich are seen to wave in pensive pride, to decorate, with graceful blandishments, the smiles of beauty; while the vital threads of the silk-worm, attenuated, almost beyond visual perception, to give the playful fold it's soft transparency, to shade, not cover, the female form; the wearer does not reflect on the practice of destroying the latter in their chrysalis state, by boiling water; or think how painfully severe the sufferings and death of the first. Were reflection admitted a place among the delicacies and softnesses of women, the feathers, the silk, the fur, and skins of animals, (obtained by outrages against nature and by abandoning every impression of compassion, sympathy, feeling, sensibility and humanity) would be cast aside, and the guiltless vegetable preferred.
When a man boasts of the dignity of his nature, and the advantages of his station, and thence infers a right of oppression of his inferiors, he exhibits his folly as well as his depravity. What should we think of a strong man, who should exert his pride, his petulance, his tyranny, and barbarity on a helpless innocent and inoffensive child? Should we not abhor and detest him as a mean, cowardly, and savage wretch, unworthy the stature and strength of a man? No less mean, cowardly, and savage is it, to abuse and torment an innocent beast, who cannot avenge or help himself; and yet has as much right to happiness in ​this world as a child can have; nay, more, if it, be his only inheritance.— Dean's "Essay on Brutes."
Of all rapacious animals, man is the most universal destroyer. The destruction of carnivorous quadrupeds, birds and insects, is, generally, limited to particular kinds; but the rapacity of man has scarcely any limitation. His empire over other animals, which inhabit this globe, is almost universal. He subdues or devours every species. Of the horse, and dog, he makes domestic slaves, and tho' he does not eat them, he either compels them to labour or keeps them for amusement. The ox, the horse, and the ram, he changes from their natural state, by a barbarous and cruel operation, and after receiving the emoluments of his labour and fertility, he rewards them with death, and then feeds upon the carcase! Many other species, tho' not commonly used as food, are daily massacred in millions, for the purposes of commerce, luxury, and caprice. Myriads of quadrupeds are annually destroyed for the sake of their furs, their hides, their tusks, their odoriferous secretions, &c. His sagacity and address has domesticated turkeys, geese, and various kinds of poultry. These be multiplies without end, and devours at pleasure. Others he imprisons in cages, to afford him the melody of song. Neither do the inhabitants of the waters escape the rapacity of man. No element can defend its inhabitants from the destructive industry of the human species.—Smellie's Philos. of Nat. Hist, i, 375. See also Buffon's Hist, of the Horse.
Mankind are no less, in proportion, accountable for the ill use of their dominion over creatures of the lower rank of beings, than for the exercise of tyranny over their own species. It is observable of those noxious animals which have qualities most powerful ​to injure us, that they naturally avoid mankind, and never hurt us, unless provoked or necessitated by hunger. Man on the other hand, seeks out and pursues even the most inoffensive animals, on purpose to persecute and destroy them. Montaigne thinks it some reflection on human nature, that few people take delight in seeing beasts caress or play together, but almost every one is pleased in seeing them lacerate and worry one another. I am sorry this temper is become almost a distinguishing character of our own nation, from the observation which is made by foreigners, on our beloved pastimes, bear-baiting, cock lighting, and the like. We should find it hard to vindicate the distroying of any thing that has life, merely out of wantonness; yet, in this principle, our children are bred up, and one of the first pleasures we allow them, is the licence of inflicting paip upon poor animals; almost as soon as we are sensible what life is ourselves, we make it our sport to take it from other creatures. I cannot but believe a very good use might be made of the fancy which children have for birds, and insects. Mr. Locke takes notice of a mother who permitted them to her children, but rewarded or punished them as they treated them well or ill. This was no other than initiating them betimes into a daily exercise of humanity, and improving their very diversions into virtue.
In man ingratitude you find, a vice peculiar to the kind. The sheep, whose annual fleece is dy'd, to guard his health, and serve his pride, forc'd from his fold and native plain, is in the cruel shambles slain. The swarms who, with industrious skill, ​ his hives with wax and honey fill, in vain whole summer days employ'd, their stores are sold, the race destroy'd. What tribute from the goose is paid! does not her wing all science aid? does it not lovers' hearts explain, and drudge to raise the merchant's gain? What now rewards this general use? he takes the quills and eats the goose!—Gay.
There are animals which have the misfortune for no manner of reason, to be treated as common enemies, wherever they may be found. The conceit that a cat has nine lives, has cost at least nine lives in ten of the whole race of them; scarcely a boy in the streets but has in this point outdone Hercules himself, who was famous for killing a monster which had but three lives. Whether the unaccountable animosity against this domsetic may beany cause of the general persecution of owls (who are a sort of feathered cats) or whether it be only an unreasonable pique the moderns have taken to a serious countenance, I shall not determine; tho' I am in inclined to believe the former; since I observe the sole reason alleged for the destruction of frogs is because they are like toads. Yet, amid all the misfortunes of these unfriended creatures, 't is some happiness that we have not yet taken a fancy to eat them: for should our countrymen refine on the French ever so little, 'tis not to be conceived to what unheard of torments, owls, cats, and frogs may be yet reserved.—Alex Pope.
How will man, that sanguinary tyrant, be able to excuse himself from the charge of innumerable cruelties inflicted on unoffending subjects committed to his care, formed for his benefit, and placed under his ​authority by their common Father, whose mercy is over all his works, and who expects that his authority should be exercised not only with tenderness and mercy, but in conformity to the laws of justice and gratitude? But to what horrid deviations from these benevolent intentions are we daily witnesses! no small part of mankind derive their chief amusements from the deaths and sufferings of inferior animals; a much greater, consider them only as engines of wood, or iron, useful in their several occupations. The car-man drives his horse, and the carpenter his nail, by repeated blows; and so long as these produce the desired effect, and they both go, they neither reflect, nor care whether either of them have any sense of feeling. The butcher knocks down the stately ox, with no more compassion than the blacksmith hammers a horseshoe; and plunges his knife into the throat of the innocent lamb, with as little reluctance as the tailor sticks his needle into the collar of a coat.
If there be some few, who, formed in a softer mould, view with pity the sufferings of these defence less creatures, there is scarcely one who entertains the least idea, that justice or gratitude can be due to their merits or their services. The social and friendly dog is hung without remorse, if, by barking in defence of his master's person or property, he happens unknowingly to disturb his rest; the generous horse, who has carried his ungrateful master for many years with ease and safety, worn out with age and infirmities, contracted in his service, is by him condemned to end his miserable days in a dust cart, where the more he exerts his little remains of spirit, the more he is whipped to save his stupid driver the trouble of whipping some other less obedient to the lash. Sometimes, having been taught the practice of ​many unnatural and useless feats in a riding house, he is at last turned out, and consigned to the dominion of a hackney coachman, by whom he is every day corrected for performing those tricks which he has learned under a severe and long discipline. The sluggish bear, in contradiction to his nature, is taught to dance, for the diversion of a malignant mob, by placing red hot irons under his feet: and the majestic bull is tortured by every mode which malice can invent, for no offence, but that he is gentle, and unwilling to assail his diabolical tormentors. These, with innumerable other acts of cruelty, injustice, and in gratitude, are every day committed, not only with impunity, but without censure, and even without observation; but we may be assured that they cannot finally pass unnoticed or unretaliated.— Guardian.
Where pain and pleasure, happiness and misery, are concerned, there the obligations of morality are concerned; and a man who is not merciful to the animals in his power, whatever his pretensions may be to reason and religion, is, in truth, of a narrow understanding, and of a bad heart. What shall we say, then, of that morality, that religion, and that policy, which admits of the cruelties we see daily exercised on creatures, we derive benefit and pleasure from every moment of our lives?—The Rev. D.Williams's Lectures.
Cruelty of a Carter. There is nothing argues so dastardly a spirit, as taking a diabolic satisfaction in the oppression of weakness; in directing barbarity against inoffensive beings, which have not the power or disposition of defence. Men's minds glow with resentment at a slight injury done to themselves, but they have no sense of the injustice which they commit on domestic animals. In passing through ​a farm-yard, in the neighbourhood of his residence, the compiler of these pages witnessed a worse than savage brutality of this kind. The farmer's labourer was employed in adjusting some part of an empty cart, which stood without horses. A heifer approached familiarly the place, seemed amused by looking at the fellow, and stood some minutes without being perceived by him. At last, the man cast his eyes on it, which immediately beamed enmity, accompanied with, "Oh, damn you! are you there? what do you want?" At the same instant he seized a very heavy hedge-stake, which lay at his feet, smote the poor heifer on the side, with great force, and broke into a loud horse laugh. The stroke resounded, and the pain inflicted may be easily conceived. On asking him what motive iuduced such unfeeling and unjust barbarity, he answered, with an oath, "the heifer had no business there." This heifer would have been less than an animal, if, after such a rebuke, it ever again approached man with affability. It is by such treatment that most of our domesticated animals avoid the human form.
Cart Horses. In the country, as well as in towns, one may witness, almost every day, treatment, the most abominable, of aged or emaciated horses, by low carters, who purchase them for a trifle, to "work up," as they term it. Among these wretches he is the cleverest fellow who can wield a massy whip with the least fatigue. Their business is literally that of hewing living flesh. Almost every neighbourhood contains some of this description of infernal monsters. Even among country farmers, if the carter be offended at the condition or figure of a horse, which his master has purchased, his whip is perpetually laid on him, his name only is continually vociferated; for ​him there is no remission, or mercy, or feeling, or compassion. He is made to sustain considerably more than his proportion of labour; his limbs forced to be continually on the stretch, while the rest of the team are allowed to be exercised moderately. At feeding times, the coarsest provision is selected, and to prevent him from reaching the corn, his head is barbarously tied up to the rack. Many such unfortunate animals have dropped down dead in the stable, from excessive labour and want of sustenance.
The excellent temper and usefulness of many a valuable horse has been ruined by the conduct of our petty tyrants of the whip. The manœuvres of "Come hither who-o," &c. are inculcated so obdurately by dint of torture, that the spirit of the horse is absolutely broken; whence ensue stubbornness aud desperation. At one instant the horse is whipped for holding too close to the driver, at the next, for bearing off too much; now, for going too quickly, then for going too slow; by and by, for stopping; afterwards, because he did not stop. In this manner the faculties of the poor beast are totally confounded, and caused to degenerate into an inert and stagnant state of insensibility, instead of making a progress in that ratio of improvement, of which he is highly capable.
It appears that the Dutch settlers in the interior of southern Africa quicken the exertions of their labouring oxen by cutting them with large knives! Mr. Barrow has minutely detailed this shocking cruelty in his Travels into that country. "Even in the neighbourhood of the Cape, where, from a more extended civilization, one would expect a greater degree of humanity," he says, "several atrocious acts ​of this kind are notorious. One of the inhabitants, better known from his wealth and his vulgarity, than from any good quality he possesses, boasts that he can at any time start his team on a full gallop by whetting his knife only on the side of the waggon. In exhibiting this masterly experiment, the effect of along and constant perseverance in brutality, to some of his friends, the waggon was overturned, and one of the company, unluckily not the proprietor, had his leg broken. Hottentot's Holland's kloof, a steep pass over the first range of mountains beyond the promontory of the Cape, has been the scene of many an instance of this sort of cruelty. I have heard a fellow boast that, after cutting and slashing one of his oxen, in this kloof, till an entire piece of a foot square did not remain in the whole hide, he stabbed him to the heart; and the same person is said at another time, to have kindled a fire under the belly of an ox, because it could not draw the waggon up the same kloof." page 183. It is remarkable that the Dutch writers exaggerate the cruelty and vices of the Portuguese colonists, as an apology for depriving them of their settlements.
Humanity shrinks with horror at the idea of a Dutchman, in Africa, kindling a fire under an ox; but it is a crime which England is not exempted from. About the year 1767, the Rev. J. Bailey, of Guiseley, near Otley, Yorkshire, witnessed a similar act of atrocious barbarity, in a servant of Mrs. Sanderson, of the same place, widow. The wretch was employed in carting dung out of a farm-yard, from which there was a difficult ascent. The load was exceedingly beyond the horse's strength. Whipping, and kicking, and hewing, were recurred to, but failed to extort additional exertions. The horse fell, ​unable again to rise. The carter then deliberately put straw under his belly, and set fire to it. This also failed. The horse had strained every nerve, and was so much exhausted, that fire produced just as little effect as if it had been put to a log of wood. Mr. Bailey ran and dashed away the blazing straw with his foot. The horse died the same day; and the perpetrator of this barbarity met with no other punishment than a dismissal from service.
On the Practice of mutilating Animals. "What an affecting sight," says the humane author of a "Letter to the Hon. Wm. Windham, on his Opposition to the Kill to prevent Bull-baiting," "is it to go into the stable of some eminent horsedealer, and there behold a long range of fine beautiful steeds, with their tails cut and slashed, tied up by pullies to give them force, some dropping blood, some corruption, and some blood and corrupt matter mixed, suffering such torture, that they frequently never recover the savage gashes they have received; and for what is all this? That they may hold their tails somewhat higher, and be for ever after deprived of the power of moving the joints of them as a defence against flies. It is true," he adds, "I am sometimes obliged to purchase horses that have been thus treated, because there are scarcely any sold which, have not undergone the operation, but in my whole life I never permitted it to be performed. I am both happy and concerned to say, that in no nation but England is this horrid custom of nicking horses tails practised." "I believe the barbarous custom came into use within this century," says Mr. Gilpin, "and has passed through various modifications, like all other customs, which are not founded in nature and truth. A few years ago the short-dock was the only ​tail (if it may be called such) in fashion, both in the army and in carriages. The absurdity however of this total amputation began to appear. The gentlemen of the army led the way. They acknowledged the beauty, and use of the tail as nature made it. The short-dock every where disappeared; and all dragoon horses paraded with long tails. The nag-tail however still continued in use. Of this there are several species, all more or less mutilated. The most deformed one is the nicked-tail; so named from the cruel operation used in forming it. The nag-tail, is still seen in all genteel carriages. Nor will any person of fashion ride a horse without one. Even gentlemen of the army, who have shewn more sense in the affair of horse.tails, have been so misled, as to introduce the nag-tail, into the light-horse; tho' it would be as difficult to give a reason now for the nag0tail, as formerly for the short dock. Two things are urged in defence of this cruel mutilation, the utility, and the beauty of it. Let us briefly as possible, examine both. To make an animal useful is no doubt, the first consideration: and to make a horse so, we must necessarily make him suffer some things, which are unnatural, because we take him out of a state of nature. He must be fed with hay and corn in the winter, which he cannot get in his open pastures: for if he be exercised beyond nature, he must have such food, as will enable him to bear it. As it is necessary likewise to make our roads hard and durable, it is necessary also to give the horse an iron hoof, that he may travel over them without injuring his feet; but all this has nothing to do with his tail, which is equally useful in a reclaimed and in a natural state.
Yes, says the advocate for docking, as it is ​necessary for the horse to travel, to hunt, and to race, it is useful to lighten him of every incumberance. And as it is necessary for him to travel through dirty roads, it is useful to rid him of an instrument, which is continually collecting dirt, and lashing it over himself and his rider.
To ease your horse of every incumberance in travelling, is certainly right. You should see that his bridle and saddle, (which are his great incumberances) are as easy as possible: and that the weight he carries, or draws, be proportioned to his strength. But depend on it, he receives no incumberance from nature. It is a maxim among all true philosophers, that nature has given nothing in vain: and there can be no reasonable doubt, but that nature has given the horse his tail to balance, and assist his motions. That this is the case, seems plain from the use he makes of it. When the animal is at rest, his tail is pendent: but when he is in violent action, he raises and spreads it, as a bird does in the same situation. Would the swallow, or the dove be assisted in their flight by the loss of their tails? or the greyhound in his speed by docking him? For myself I have no doubt, but if the experiment were tried at Newmarket, the horse, with his long tail, however the literati there might laugh at him, would not be in the least injured in his speed; and would certainly answer better, in all his sudden turns, to the intention of his rider. He would extend, and spread his helm; it would steer his way; and we should seldom hear of his running out of his course, or on the wrong side of the post. Besides, his tail probably assists him even in his common exertions, and balances his body, when he trots, and prevents his stumbling. I have heard a gentleman, who had travelled much in ​the east, remark that the Turkish, and Arabian horses rarely stumble; which he attributed, and with much appearance of truth, to their long tails.
But whatever use the tail may be to the horse in action, it is acknowledged, on all hands, to be of infinite use to him, at rest. Whoever sees the horse grazing in summer, and observes the constant use he makes of his long tail, in lashing the flies from his sides, must be persuaded, that it is a most useful instrument: and must be hurt to see him fidget a short dock, backward and forward, with ineffectual attempts to rid himself of some plague, which he cannot reach.
As to the objection against the tail, as an instrument, which is continually gathering dirt, and lashing it around, if there be any truth in what I have already observed, this little objection dissolves; especially as the inconvenience may with great ease be remedied, when the road is dirty, either by knotting up the tail, or by tying it with a leathern strap. But whatever becomes of utility, the horse is certainly more beautiful, we are told, without his dangling tail. What a handsome figure he makes, when "he carries both his ends well!" This is the constant language of horse-dealers, stable-keepers, and grooms; and such language, tho' originating in tasteless ignorance, and mere prejudice, has perverted the sense, and understanding of men. It is inconceivable, how delusively the eye sees, as well as the understanding, when it is fascinated, and led aside by fashion and custom. Associated ideas of various kinds give truth a different air. When we see a game-cock, with all his sprightly actions and gorgeous plumes about him, we acknowledge one of the most beautiful birds in nature. But when we see him armed with steel and ​prepared for battle, we cry, what a scarecrow! A cock-fighter, however, with all the ideas of the pit about him, will conceive, that in this latter state, he is in his greatest beauty; and if his picture be drawn, it must be drawn in this ridiculous manner. I have often seen it.
Let jockies, and stable-boys, and cock-fighters, keep their own absurd ideas, but let not men, who pretend to see and think for themselves, adopt such ridiculous conceits. In arts, we judge by the rules of art. In nature, we have no criterion but the forms of nature. We criticise a building by the rules of architecture; but in judging of a tree, or a mountain, we judge by the most beautiful forms of each, which nature hath given us. It is thus in other things. From nature alone we have the form of a horse. Should we then seek forbeauty in that object, in our own wild conceptions, or recur to the great original from whence we had it? We may be assured, that nature's forms are always the most beautiful; and therefore we should endeavour to correct our ideas by her's. If, however, we cannot give up the point, let us at least be consistent. If we admire a horse without a tail, or a cock without feathers, let us not laugh at the Chinese for admiring the disproportioned foot of his mistress; or at the Indian, for doting on her black teeth, and tattooed cheeks. For myself, I cannot conceive, why it should make a horse more beautiful to take his tail from him, than it would be to clap a tail, as an addition of beauty, to a man. The accidental motion also of the tail gives it peculiar grace; both when the horse moves it himself, and when it waves in the wind. The beauty of it, to an unprejudiced eye, is conspicuous at once; and in all parade, and state-horses, it is ​acknowledged: tho' even here there is an attempt made to improve nature by art: the hair must be adorned with ribbons; and the bottom of the tail clipped square, which adds heaviness, and is certainly so far a deformity.
The same absurd notions, which have led men to cut off the tails of horses, have led them also to cut off their ears. I speak not of low grooms, and jockies; we have seen the studs of men of the first fashion, misled probably by their grooms and jockies, producing only cropt-horses.
When a fine horse has wide, lopping ears, as he sometimes has, without spring or motion in them, a man may be tempted to remove the deformity; but to cut a pair of fine ears from the head of a horse, is, if possible, a greater absurdity, than to cut off his tail. Nothing can be alleged in it's defence. The ear neither retards motion, nor flings dirt.
Much of the same ground may be gone over on this subject, which we went over on the last. With regard to the utility of the ear, it is not improbable, that cropping may injure the horse's hearing: there is certainly less concave surface to receive the vibrations of the air. I have heard it also asserted with great confidence, that this multilation injures his health; for when a horse has lost that pent-house, which nature has given him over his ear, it is reasonable to believe the wind and rain may get in, and give him cold.
Few of the minuter parts of animal nature are more beautiful than the ear of a horse. The contrast of the lines is pleasing; the concavity and the convexity, being generally seen together in the natural turn of the ear. Nor is the proportion of the ear less pleasing. It is contracted at the insertion, swells in the middle, and tapers to a point. The ear of no ​animal is so beautfully proportioned. That of some beasts, especially of the savage kinds, as the lion, and pard, is naturally rounded and has little form. The ears of other animals, as the fox and cat, are pointed, short and thick. Those of the cow are round and heavy. The hare and ass's ears are long, and nearly of the same thickness. The dog and swine have flapping ears. The sheep, alone has ears, which may be compared with those of the horse. The ear of the horse receives great beauty also from it's colour, as well as form. The ears of bay and grey horses are generally tipped with black, which melts into the colour of the head. But the ear of the horse re ceives it's greatest beauty from motion. The ear of no animal has that vibrating power. The ears of a spirited horse are continually in motion; quivering and darting their sharp points towards every object which is presented: and the action is still more beautiful, when the cars are so well set on, that the points are drawn nearly together. But it is not only the quivering motion of the horse's ears, that we admire; we admire them also as the interpreters of his passions, particularly of fear, which some denominate courage; and of anger, or malice. The former he expresses by darting them forward; the latter, by laying them back.
Tho' nothing I can say on the subject, I am well persuaded, can weigh against the authority of grooms, and jockies, so as to make a general reform; yet if, here and there, a small party could be raised in opposition to this strange custom, it might, in lime, perhaps obtain fashion on it's side." This reasoning will apply with equal force against the mutilation of dogs and other animals. ​Of Travelling Post. There is another species of inhumanity, which all ranks, except the poor and indigent, stand chargeable with; which is the custom of travelling post. How often the trembling chaise or coach-horse, panting for breath, every limb shattered by the hardness of the roads, arrives in the inn-yard, spent to the last under extreme exertion. His sides wreathed or bleeding with the lashes or spurs of his unfeeling driver, and every muscle and tendon quivering with convulsive agony! In vain is he offered food; his mouth is parched with thirst and dust. He cannot eat, and water is denied, because it would endanger his existence, which is to be preserved for future torment. In such cases, it not unfrequeutly has happened that the postillion has been tipped an extraordinary gratuity, for which he would, at any time, flog the horses till they nearly expired under torture and fatigue. Inhuman custom! barbarous propensity! the dreadful effect of polished manners! Such is the misery that a boasted demi-god bestows on his inferiors. On a smaller scale of cruelty, a horse is frequently lashed with the most savage fury, by a gentleman's coachman, during the time of moving the length of a street, for no other reason than that he has, accidentally, stumbled, trod in a hole, or slipped through bad shoeing, and frequently ignorant for what he is corrected.
The following case of cruelty was in the year 1799, proved on oath by Lord Robert Seymour, before the magistrates in Bow-street. His lordship stated, "That he saw in Oxford-street, a coachman unmercifully whipping, from his box, two half starved and perfectly exhausted horses, which were endeavouring to draw from the channel an empty hackney coach. The driver, after so treating the horses, alighted, and ​seizing the near, or left hand horse, beat him for a considerable time with the butt.end of his whip; he then proceeded to the right hand, or off horse, the outer shoulder of which was perfectly raw and excoriated, exposing a sort of pipe hole in it's centre, which hole appeared to have been formed by a rowel. The coachman then proceeded to punch repeatedly the raw surface of the shoulder, and deliberately worked the butt-end of the whip into the said rowel or pipe-hole. His lordship intreated him to desist, reminding him of the utter incapacity, on the part of the horses, to move. The coachman's reply was, "If he, his lordship, interfered any further on the part of the horses, he would kill them with a knife which he had in big pocket!"
Lord Erskine said, in his speech to the House of Peers, "I can assert, with the greatest sincerity, that nothing has ever excited in my mind greater disgust, than to observe, what we all of us are obliged to see every day, horses panting⸻What do I say? literally dying under the scourge, when on looking into the chaises, we see them carrying to and from London, men and women, to whom or to others it can be of no possible signification whether they arrive one day sooner or later, and sometimes indeed whether they ever arrive.
The Buying up of Horses, is an evil which exists under the deliberate calculation of intolerable avarice. This practice takes place at a time when past their strength, from old age or disease, upon the computation of how many days of torture and oppression they are capable of living under, so as to return a profit, with the addition of flesh and skin, when brought to one of the numerous houses appropriated for the slaughter of horses. If this practice, ​says Lord Erskine, only extended to carrying on the fair work of horses, to the very latest period of labour, instead of destroying them, when old or disabled, I should approve instead of condemning it; but it is most notorious, that with the value of such animals, all care of them is generally at an end, and you see them (I speak literally, and of a systematic abuse) sinking and dying under loads, which no man living would have set the same horse to, when in the meridian of his strength and youth. This horrid abuse, which appears at first view to be incapable of aggravation, is, nevertheless, most shockingly aggravated when the period arrives at which one would think cruelty must necessarily cease; when exhausted Nature is ready to bestow the deliverance of death. But even then, a new and most atrocious system of torture commences, which has been proved to my satisfaction, and that of my friend Mr. Jekyll, on the information of a worthy magistrate, who called our attention to the abuse. It is
The Traffic of the Naggers, as it is called; a hideous practice which still exists. Among the immense number of letters which Lord Erskine received from persons of great respectability, in favour of the animal protection bill, his lordship referred to one where the particulars of this common but horrid practice were detailed. The traffic consists in buying up old horses for dogs' meat. These horses are kept without food, until there be a demand for the commodity. This correspondent informed Lord Erskine, that he had frequently seen these wretched animals devouring the remains of their dead companions, and even eating their own dung, to allay the gnawing pains of hunger. ​Of Impounding Animals. The diabolical infamy and stupidity of men who keep animals without adequate food to support their strength, or even their existence, has been feelingly adverted to by Lord Erskine;" I have had complaints of this abuse from all parts of the country. The notice to the owner is seldom served, and thus the poor innocent animal is left to starve in the pound. As far as an animal is considered merely as property, this may be all very well, and the owner must find him out at his peril, but when the animal is looked to, the impounder ought to feed him, and charge it to the owner, as part of the damages."
"Can no law," says Miss Williams, "succour that wretched horse, worn to the bone from famine and fatigue, lashed by his cruel tyrant into exertion beyond his strength, while he drags, in some vile vehicle, six persons, besides his merciless owner? For myself, I confess, that at the view of such spectacles, the charm of nature seems suddenly dissolved, to me the fields lose their verdure, and the woods their pleasantness; nor is my indignation confined to the unrelenting driver of these loaded machines; I consider the passengers who tartly assent to the pain he inflicts, as more than his accomplices in barbarity."
Bloomfield beautifully contrasts the case of Dobbin, the Farmer's Horse, with that of the Post Horse; in the following lines, from his "Farmer's Boy."
Short-sighted Dobbin! thou canst only see the trivial hardships that encompass thee: thy chains are freedom and thy toils repose. Could the poor Post.horse tell thee all his woes; shew thee his bleeding shoulders, and unfold the dreadful anguish he endures for gold: ​hir'd at each call of business, lust, or rage, that prompts the traveller on from stage to stage. Still on his strength depends his boasted speed; for them his limbs grow weak, his bare ribs bleed; and tho' he groaning, quickens at command, their extra shilling in the driver's hand becomes his bitter scourge; 'tis he must feel the double efforts of the lash and steel; 'til when, up hill, the destin'd inn he gains, and, trembling under complicated pains, prone from his nostrils, darting on the ground, his breath emitted floats in clouds around: drops chase each other down his chested sides, and spatter'd mud his native colour hides; through his swoln veins the boiling torrent flows, and every nerve a separate torture knows. His harness loos'd, he welcomes, eager-eyed, the pails full draught that quivers by his side, and joys to see the well-known stable door, as the starv'd mariner the friendly shore. Ah! well it were, if here his sufferings ceas'd, and ample hours of rest his pains appeas'd; but rous'd again, and sternly bade to rise, and shake refreshing slumber from his eyes, ere his exhauted spirits can return, or through his frame reviving ardour burn, come forth he must, tho' limping, maim'd and sore, he hears the whip: the chaise is at the door; the collar lightens and again he feels his half-heal'd wounds inflam'd; again the wheels, with tiresome sameness, in his ears resound, o'er blinding dust, or miles of flinty ground. Thus nightly robbed, and injur'd day by day, his piece-meal murderers wear his life away. What sayest thou, Dobbin? what tho' bounds await ​with open jaws the moment of thy fate, no better fate attends his public race; his life is misery, and his end disgrace. Then freely bear thy burden to the mill; obey but one short law,—thy driver's will.
O barbarous men! your cruel breasts aswage; why vent ye on the gen'rous steed your rage? does not his service earn your daily bread? your wives, your children, by his labours fed!
Gay's Trivia.
The Asiatics, in general, but particularly the Arabians, have been long renowned for their kind and merciful treatment of beasts, rarely or never correcting their horses, either with whip or spur; but treat them as animals which they perceive are endowed with a large portion of the reasoning faculty.
Some of the most beautiful passages, by ancient writers, are those in which the animal creation is mentioned. Few readers have escaped tears at the affectionate address of Mezentius to his horse, 10 Æu. 861, which is one of the most pathetic strokes in Virgil. No part of Homer is more remarkable than the art with which that great poet rivets attention in favour of the horse of Achilles, in opposition to poetical truth; yet such is the beauty of the passage that the frigid propriety of fact is lost in the magic of the poetry.
In Jacob Guther de Jure Manium, published in 1671, there are some curious instances to be found of the fondness which the ancients had for their animals, and which they carried to a most ridiculous excess.
Alexander the great, had funeral rites performed on the death of his horse Bucephalus.—Pliny, lib. viii, ​cap. 42. Augustus erected a tomb to the memory of a favourite horse. At Athens, those horses which had thrice conquered at the Olympic Games, were always buried with those who had fallen in battle.—Ælian, lib. xii. Lucius Verus erected a golden statue of a favourite speedy horse, during his life, and on his death made a tomb for him in the Vatican.—Capitolin. in Vero. Adrian was so fond of horses and dogs, that he erected tombs for them.
On the Treatment of the Ass. Such is the depravity of the human race, that because this poor animal is meek and patient, beyond all comparison, it is subjected to excessive labour, the most barbarous treatment, and the coarsest food. It's humble appearance, size, and want of spirit, subjects it to become the property of the most abject and brutal of the human kind. The common lanes and high roads are it's nightly residence; where it becomes the sport of debased children, who have been early initiated in unfeelingness and the arts of wanton cruelty.
The ass has many and superior claims to protection and kind treatment. His countenance is mild and modest, expressing a languid patience; his deportment simple and unaffected; and his pace, tho' not swift, is uniform and unabated. His service is indefatigable and unostentatious, and he is content with the most indifferent food. He is said to be immoderately fond of plantane, and nice only in the choice of water, drinking that which is clear. The inimitable Sterne has endeavoured to render the ass respectable, and that this patient useful animal is not so in this country, is a proof of the wretchedly unfeeling and barbarous disposition of it's inhabitants.
Stripping of Geese, as practiced in the fens of Lincolnshire, reflects an odium en the name of ​man. Mr Pennant calmly describes this more than savage custom, as follows. "The geese are plucked fire times in the year: the first plucking is at Lady-day, for feathers and quills; and the same is renewed, for feathers only, four times more between that and Michaelmas. The old geese submit quietly, to the operation, but the young ones are very noisy and unruly. I once saw this performed, and observed that goslings of six weeks old were not spared; for their tails were plucked, as I was told, to habituate them early to what they were to come to. If the season prove cold, numbers of the geese die by this barbarous custom."
Entomology. The Entomologist or Collector of Insects, practises the most unrelenting cruelties on flies, moths and spiders. The papilionaceous race are impaled for days and weeks on corking pins. The libellutæ, or dragon-flies, are killed by squeezing the thorax, or with the spirit of turpentine.
Naturalists, of some feeling, find it difficult to kill the largest kinds of Moths and Sphinxes. The corking pin, on which they are impaled, is usually dipped in aquafortis, pierced through the body, then with, drawn and a drop of the aquafortis put into the wound. Should this prove insufficient, the point of the pin is put through a card and held in the flame of a candle till it be red hot. Fumigations of sulphur are said to destroy the beauty of the insect; and do not always succeed; not even when exposed under a glass with burning sulphur for half an hour. The Libellutæ tribe are destroyed by a red hot wire "being run up the body and thorax.—Donovan on the Management of Insects.
Science may certainly be improved, and learning increased without the practice of such barbarities. ​'T is a worthless science which is acquired at the expense of that humanity which is highly necessary in our journey through life. The cruelty, not to say ingratitude, of gibbeting or impaling alive, so many innocent beautiful beings, in return for the pleasure they afford us in the display of their lovely tints and glowing colours, is abominable.
"Could the figure, instincts, and qualities of birds, beasts, insects, reptiles and fish be ascertained," says Sir William Jones, "either on the plan of Buffon, or on that of Linnæus, without giving pain to the objects of our examination, few studies would afford us more solid instruction, or more exquisite delight: but I never could learn by what right, nor conceive with what feelings, a naturalist can occasion the misery of an innocent bird, and leave it's young, perhaps, to perish in a cold nest, because it has gay plumage, and has never been accurately delineated; or deprive, even a butterfly, of it's natural enjoyments, because it has the misfortune to be rare and beautiful: nor shall I ever forget the couplet of Ferdausi, for which Sadi, who cites it with applause, pours blessings on his departed spirit.
Ah! spare yon emmet, rich in hoarded grain; he lives in pleasure, "but he dies with pain." Teignmouth's Memoirs, v. ii, p. 356.
The Preserving of Birds and Animals, has, of late years, become a trade, among the commonest mechanics, whose employment it is to destroy them for the purpose of disposing of their bodies, after they are fitted up in boxes with glass before them. Many have been thus savagely curious in purchasing great numbers of them to decorate rooms, which they take pleasure in exhibiting to their friends.
Some obtain birds by finding their nests, and then, ​some day afterwards, advance cautiously to the placet and put over them a hand-net. In this manner they frequently take both the parents; or, by taking one of them, they generally obtain the other with a gun! Such is the progress which men make in barbarity, while they are complimented as ingenious! They may indeed be ingenious, but they are ingenious in crime, and merit the title of Ingenious Monsters.
Anatomists. Among the inferior professors of medical knowledge, is a race of wretches whose lives are only distinguished by varieties of cruelty. Their favourite amusement is to nail dogs to tables and open them alive; to try how long life may be continued in various degrees of mutilation, or with the excision or laceration of the vital parts; to examine whether burning irons are felt more acutely by the bone or tendon; and whether the more lasting agonies areproduced by poison forced into the mouth or injected into the veins. It is not without reluctance that I offend the sensibility of the tender mind, but since they are continually published with ostentation, let me be allowed to mention them, since I mention them with abhorrence. Mead has invidiously remarked of Woodward, that he gathered shells and stones, and intended to pass for a philosopher. With pretensions much less reasonable, the anatomical novice tears out the living bowels of an animal, and styles himself physician!
What is alleged in defence of these hateful practices, every one knows; but the truth is, that by knives, fire, and poison, knowledge is not always sought, and is very seldom attained. The experiments which have been tried, are tried again; he that burned an animal with irons yesterday, will be willing to amuse himself with burning another to-morrow. I ​know not that by living dissections, any discovery has been made by which a single malady is more easily cured: and, if the knowledge of physiology has been somewhat increased, he surely pays too much for knowledge when he learns the use of the lacteals at the expense of his humanity.
The faithful dog (whose attachment and gratitude are exemplary and worthy the imitation of man, when with a farmer or country 'squire, is well fed, and has no great cause of complaint, except on account of the loss of his ears and tail, which were lopt off to improve nature; and on account of now and then a bruise or broken rib, from gentle spurns: but if the poor quadruped falls into the hands of a tanner, an anatomist, or experimental philosopher, alas! of what avail are his good qualities? These canine un fortunates are frequently tortured for the good of mankind! Some have their throats cut to prove the efficacy of a styptic, others are bled to death for a philosophical effusion, and many animals resign their breath in the receiver of an air-pump. Unfortunate animals!
It is impossible to read tho experiments made by Browne Langrish, read before the Royal Society, and published in 1746, under the title of "Physical Experiments on Brutes," without sensations of horror. After the injection of various corrosive menstruums in to the bladders of dogs, they were hung, for the sake of examination; but others died in the most dreadful convulsions. The stomach of a dog was cut out while alive, in order to try whether the liquor Gastricus would be coagulated by it. But the most dreadful of his experiments are those made on dogs, to ascertain by what means the fumes of sulphur destroy an animal body. He cut asunder the ​wind-pipes of dogs, so that the fumes could not reach the lungs, and then, fixing the head through a hole in a wainscot, he proceeded to the most wanton of experiments. The miserable creatures foamed at the mouth, roared hideously, or died in excruciating torture. This author, in the winding up of one part of his work, talks of the pleasure, variety, and usefulness of his experiments! In this manner these privileged tyrants sport away the lives and revel in the agonies and tortures of creatures, whose sensations are as delicate, and whose natural right to an unpainful enjoyment of life is as great as that of man.
The monthly reviewers, after examining a new physiological theory, contained in "Experiments on the Cause of Heat in living Animals, &c. by John Caverhill, M. D. M. R. C. P. F. R. S." add, we claim no small degree of merit, with our readers, in having, for their information, read the numerous and cruel experiments related in this pamphlet through out; the perusal of which was attended with a continual shudder at the repeated recital of such a number of instances of the most deliberate and unrelenting cruelty, exercised on several scores of rabbits, in order to ascertain the truth of a strange and extravagant hypothesis. At every page, we read of awls stuck between the vertebra;, [joints of the back bone] and into the spinal marrow of living rabbits, who exhibit, at the time, every symptom of exquisite pain, and live ten, twelve, and even nineteen days afterwards; their bladders sometimes bursting, in consequence of their losing the power of expelling the urine accumulated in them, unless when the unfeeling operator, not out of tendernesi, but to protract the miserable life of the suffering animal, as long as possible, in order to render the experiment more ​complete, thought proper to press it out, from time to time, with his hands. But we spare the sensibility of our readers, which must be already hurt by this brief relation of these immoral experiments, for surely there are moral relations subsisting between man and his fellow-creatures of the brute creation; and tho' by drovers and draymen neither attended to nor respected, it becomes not philosophers, much less physicians, thus flagrantly to violate them."—Mon. Rev. Sep. 1770. p. 213.
The experiments of Spallanzani are multifarious, indeed, and perhaps valuable, but many of them were attended with circumstances of disgusting and unpardonable cruelty.
When one anatomist, affects to speak in a light and pleasant manner of the patience displayed by a hedge-hog while dissected alive, relating that it suffered it's feet to be nailed down to the table, and it's entrails to be cut in pieces, without a single groan, bearing every stroke of the operator's knife with a more than Spartan fortitude; [See Pennant's British Zoology, Art. Hedge-Hog.] and when another professes to have been amused with the noise of a grasshopper, excited by tortures; [See Phil. Trans, for 1793. part 1, art 4.] when, I say, such expressions meet the eye, a disposition to cruelty, and not the good of mankind, is evidently the predominant spring of action.
Were an ancient physician to rise from his grave, and take a step into an anatomical theatre, the implements of the art, and the dexterity with which they are managed, might confound him: but when the learned professor throws his scalpel aside and bursts forth in all the elevation and splendor of physiological oratory, the venerable ancient would turn with ​disgust from the flimsy and consequential harangue.
Destroying Bees. The commonwealth of the bee is admirably governed. Regularity, skill and common toil support It. Every appetite is checked and every private interest suppressed for the public good; and, in the winter months, they exhibit a pattern of frugality and temperance. Mankind, in general, make a bee-hive an object of attention and care; admiring the persevering industry of this insect, and yet he will deliberately suffocate twelve thousand beings (the number of which a hive usually consists) for the sake of seizing a store, the produce of many an anxious toilsome summer's day.
Ah see! where robb'd, and murder'd in that pit lies the still heaving hive! at evening snatch'd beneath, the cloud of guilt.concealing night, and fix'd o'er sulphur; while, not dreaming ill, the happy people in their waxen cells, sat tending public cares, and planning schemes of temperance; for winter.poor, rejoic'd to mark, full-flowing round, their copious stores. Sadden, the dark oppressive steam ascends, and, us'd to milder scents, the tender race, by thousands, tumble from their honeyed domes, convolv'd, and agonizing in the dust. And was it then for this you roam'd the Spring, intent, from flower to flower? for this you toil'd, ceaseless, the burning Summer heats away? for this in Autumn search'd the blooming waste, nor lost one sunny gleam? for this sad fate? O Man! tyrannic lord! how long, how long shall prostrate Nature groan beneath your rage, awaiting renovation? When oblig'd, must you destroy? Of their ambrosial food can you not borrow, and, in just return, ​afford them shelter from the wintry winds? or, as the sharp year pinches, with their own again regale them on some smiling day? See ! where the stony bottom of their town looks desolate and wild, with here and there a helpless number, who the ruined state survive, lamenting, weak, cast out to death. Thus a proud city, populous and rich, full of the works of peace, and high in joy, at theatre or feast, or sunk in sleep, (as late, Palermo! was thy fate) is seiz'd by some dread earthquake, and convulsive hurl'd sheer from the black foundation, stench involv'd, into a gulph of blue sulphureous flame. Thomson's Autumn.
This business of murder and robbery united, is unpardonable, because nearly the same quantity of honey can be procured without the crime of such outrages. See Huish's Treatise on Bees, 8vo; Isaac's General Apiarian; Willich's Domestic Encyclopædia, article Bee; Encyclopædia Britannica; and other Encyclopædias. A sympathizing person, will disdain to partake of a sweet, purchased by the combined crimes of murder and robbery. To retain a conscience free from the imputation of being an encourager of crime, is to him of infinitely greater importance than the temporary gratification of sense.
The Business of Butchery. Among butchers, and those who qualify the different parts of an animal into food, it would be easy to select persons much further removed from those virtues which should result from reason, consciousness, sympathy, and animal sensations, than any savages upon the face of the earth. In order to avoid all the generous and spontaneous sympathies of compassion, the office of ​shedding blood is committed into the hands of men who have been educated in inhumanity, and whose sensibility has been blunted and destroyed by early habits of barbarity. Thus men increase misery in order to avoid the sight of it ; and because they cannot endure being obviously cruel themselves, or commit actions which strike painfully on their senses, they commission those to commit them who are formed to delight in cruelty, and to whom misery, torture, and shedding of blood is an amusement. They appear not once to reflect, that whatever we do by another we do ourselves.
When a large and gentle bullock, after having resisted a ten times greater force of blows than would have killed his murderer, falls stunned, at last, and his armed head is fastened to the ground with cords; as soon as the wide wound is made, and the jugulars are cut asunder, what mortal can, without compassion, hear the painful bellowings intercepted by his blood, the bitter sighs, which speak the sharpness of his anguish, and the deep sounding groans, with loud anxiety, fetched from the bottom of his strong and palpitating heart. Look on the trembling and violent convulsions of his limbs; see while his reeking gore streams from him, his eya become dim and languid, and behold his strugglings, gasps, and last efforts for life. When a creature has given such convincing and undeniable proofs of terror, and of pain and agony, Is there a disciple of Descartes so inured to blood, as not to refute, by his commisseration, the philosophy of that vain reasoner?
The manner of slaughtering oxen in this country is barbarous. The writer of this passage has seen an ox receive five different blows, and break from it's murderers each time. The description of a head so ​shattered is too painful to dwell on. Lord Somerville, took a person with him to Lisbon, to be instructed in the Portuguese method of slaying oxen, or, as it is there termed, "of laying down cattle." It is done by passing a knife through the vertebræ of the neck into the spine, which causes instant death. His lordship has proposed to have our slaughterers instructed in the practice, but with all the stupidity and prejudice which belongs to them, they have refused. The customs of the Jews, and from them the Mahometans, in respect to killing those animals which their laws allow them to eat, merits applause, when compared with the cruelty of Christians. The person appointed for this purpose is obliged to prepare a knife of a considerable length, which is made as sharp as the keenest razor, the utmost care being taken, that the least notch or inequality may not remain upon the edge; with this he is obliged to cut the throat and blood vessels at one stroke, whereby the painful method of knocking them down, which often requires several barbarous blows, and stabbing them in the neck with a blunt knife, is avoided. Every beast mangled in killing, is accounted unclean.
There is not one man in a hundred, if not brought up in a slaughter-house, but who will own, that of all trades he could not be a butcher; and I question whether ever any person so much as killed a chicken, without reluctancy, the first time. Some people are not io be persuaded to taste of any creatures they have daily seen and been acquainted with, while they were alive; others extend their scruplesno farther than to their own poultry, and refuse to eat what they fed and took care of themselves. Yet all of them will feed heartily, and without remorse, on beef, mutton, and fowls, when they are bought in the market. ​We might fill a volume, were we to collect and enumerate the various acts of damnable infamy practised by this set of men and tolerated in this country of assumed tenderness and sensibility; but an instance or two must suffice.
It is customary with butchers, (horrid name! but justly significant) to tie two calves together by the legs and to throw them across a horse, in which manner they are suspended for two or three hours together, and still longer, if the inhuman wretch has business on his way home, or if invited to lounge at a favourite alehouse.
It is the constant practice of these wretches to bleed calves to death, for the purpose of whitening the flesh; and the process is worthy of professed and hired murderers. An incision is made in the throat, and the animal is then hung up by the heels, while yet alive and convulsed with pain. One end of a short iron hook is at the same time stuck into the body near the tail, and the other end in the mouth, for the purpose of bending the neck, and opening the wound. In this state the miserable animal is left to linger several hours!
It is not uncommon with these professed murderers, in driving a number of sheep, when any one is untractable, to break it's leg.
A butcher driving a flock of sheep, one of them having broke away from the others, the monster drew his knife, and, with shocking barbarity, cut out the poor creature's eyes. In that condition he turned him to the rest of the flock. Such barbarous inhumanity raised the indignation of all who saw it, except the executioner, who being asked the motive which had induced him to such an act of cruelty, replied, with unconcern, that "he was accountable to no ​person for what he did, and that he would use his own property according to his own mind."—Gentleman's Mag. vol. xxiv, p. 241, 255.
A number of wretched calves, with almost useless limbs, from an inactive position and the jolting of a waggon, are continually thrown down upon the stones of Smithfield, while unconscious, and worse than brutal spectators, are amused, even to expressions of rapture, in proportion to the severity of the falls and injuries of these distressed animals. Were a few of these feeling advocates for the practice of Christianity precipitated in like manner, such an amusement would suggest the convenience of a slide and a truss of straw, or some other gentle means of effecting the same end.
Cooks are a species of butchers. R. Mant, m. a. author of a "Sermon on the Sinfulness of Cruelty to Animals," preached at Southampton, Aug. 16, 1807, says, page 18, "I have been credibly informed that the following anecdote of a nobleman of high rank, lately deceased, is true. His attention being one day forcibly arrested by cries of distress, proceeding from the kitchen, he enquired the cause; and was told that they were uttered by a pig, which the cook was then whipping to death, that it might furnish a more exquisite delicacy for his grace's table. It would be injustice to omit, that his grace expressed much horror at the enormity, forbade it's repetition, and dismissed the servant who had been guilty of it."
"It is a miserable thing," says Mr. Newton, "to observe the low estimate which is made of the qualities of the ill-fated sheep. In his wild state, he is as respectable for strength and courage, as his size entitles him to be. I lately saw a ram in Piccadilly, ​much taller than the common ones, measuring nearly three feet four inches, to the top of the head, exclusively of the horns, covered with hair, every where strong and coarse, but long and shaggy at the mane. The lad in attendance rode upon his back, across the room, without any apparent inconvenience. At the sight of this I could not help reflecting that by domesticating the sheep, and applying it to our cruel purposes, we load it with fat till the slightest exertion puts it out of breath; so that we even render it liable to roll over and be cast, as the shepherds call it, there often to lie upon it's back till the crows pick it's eyes out, or until it perishes from inability to regain it's legs. It is indeed no just matter of surprise that the domesticated sheep can never recover it's wild state. After robbing the unfortunate creature of it's own warm clothing, it is kept ready for the knife in a state of incipient rot, and then we exclaim, what a dull, sluggish, stupid looking animal is this! I shudder at the thought which forces itself on my mind. Tell me, reader, is that originally noble creature man, more, or is he less deteriorated?"
Gibbon, speaking of the tartarean shepherds, says, "the ox or the sheep are slaughtered by the same hand from which they are accustomed to receive their daily food; and the bleeding limbs are served, with very little preparation, on the table of their unfeeling murderer." This assersion is applicable to almost every servant in a large english farmhouse. A tolerably correct conjecture may be formed of the enormous carnivorous propensity of the English, from the daily devastations which are uniformly committed on the various kinds of domestic animals in London. Lord Townsend in the year 1725, assured the King of Prussia, at Herenhauscn, which is ​confirmed by enact registers, that one day with another, the number amounted to 1200 oxen; besides which, above 20,000 sheep, and 12,000 hogs and calves, are consumed there every week. According to Maitland's calculation for the same year, there were destroyed in London, 98,244 oxen, 711,123 sheep and lambs; 164,760 calves, and 186,932 hogs; and a proportionable quantity of fish and fowl."— Keyster's Travels.
The consumption of sheep and lambs, in London, during the last 12 months, amounted in number to 1,062,700. The number of horned cattle slaughtered, was 164,000. By the inspectors, return, it appears that the number of horsebides produced at Leadenhall-market, amounted to 12,900! —"The News," Oct, 26, 1818.
The following new method of destroying field-mice is seriously given in a modern publication, as an ingenious invention. "Catch, by mean* of traps, or any other method, ten or a dozen field mice, alive, and confine them in a box without food. They will be driven by hunger to destroy and devour each other. The single conqueror and survivor of the rest, will, by this means, have acquired an unnatural and ravenous thirst after the blood of his own species, and when turned out into the fields, from which he was taken, he will go into their holes, and destroy both young and old, in order to satiate his newly ac quired appetite." Could any wretch less infamous than a professed butcher, be the inventer of so diabolical a method?—Cited by the Rev. L. Richmond, in his Appendix to his Sermon on Cruelty.
Instances are not wanting, in which men have first eaten human flesh from the pressure of extreme hanger, and afterwards indulged in it from ​wantonness, and depravity. An eminent Portuguese naturalist is the author of the following extracts on this subject. A copy of the paper containing them was given by him from his own manuscript, never published, to Dr. G. H. Langsford, physician to Prince Christian of Waldeck at Lisbon, on the 5th of January 1798, who translated it into German, and sent it to Professor Voigt of Jena. [See his "Magazin. für den nuesten zustand der Naturkunde," vol. 1, p. 3.] "During a dreadful famine in India, which destroyed more than a hundred thousand persons, when the roads and streets were covered with dead bodies, because people had not sufficient strength to inter them, I saw several have the resolution to preserve their lives by this disgusting food; but some of them, tho' not many, found it so delicious that, when the famine was at an end, they retained such an irresistible propensity to eat human flesh that they lay in wait for the living in order to devour them. Besides others, there was a mountaineer who concealed himself in a forest near the highway, where he used to cast a rope, with a noose, over the heads of the passengers, whom he afterwards cut to pieces to gratify his unnatural appetite. He had killed many persons in this manner, but was at length caught and executed. At the same time, and owing to the same cause, a woman used to go out for the express purpose of carrying away children who had strayed from their homes. She stopped up their noses and mouths with clay, that they might not call for assistance, and by these means suffocated them. She confessed the fact on being taken, and some salted human flesh was found in her habitation. My servant having entered it, observed a girl of four or five years of age, who had been suffocated in this manner, and who ​was lying, wrapped up, half dead, in a mat. By employing proper means she was however restored to life."
We read, in different works, both ancient and modern, that many nations, in various parts of the world, have killed men, not on account of famine, but of the delicious taste of human flesh, which they not only fed on but publicly sold.
That people eat their deceased relations, by way of shewing them honour, seems to be as romantic as it is repugnant to nature; yet there are many au thors, from Herodotus, the father of history, down to modern times, who assert that this practice has prevailed among various nations.
"There is a law in Cochinchina, that all rebels, when convicted, shall be executed, and that their flesh shall be devoured by the king's loyal subjects, and, in particular, by those who are nearest his person. At the time I resided in that country several executions of this kind took place. The men were beheaded, but the women were stabbed. After the execution, the soldiers who guarded the palace, flocked around the bodies, and each cutting off with a pocket knife, a small piece, dipped it in the juice of an unripe lemon, and in that manner swallowed it. But as the size of the morsel is not determined by the law, and as most of the people have an aversion to such food, many suffer the bit of flesh to drop through their fingers and swallow only the lemon.
"At the time when the Cochinese were at war against the Mois, a people who inhabit the mountains to the west, and who often make incursions into their territories, the Cochinese general marched with an army towards the mountains; but as he was not able to get at the enemy, on account of their ​inaccessible situation, be ordered two prisoners, whom he had taken, to be put to death, and their flesh to be devoured by his soldiers.
"In the year 1777, being on board an English ship of war in Turon harbour, in order to return from Cochinchina to Europe, a party arrived there who had joined a powerful rebel named Nhae. This leader and his party had taken some of the king's confidental friends, and one in particular who had formerly done him a great deal of injury. The latter they put to death; and in order to gratify their revenge, they tore out his liver and ate it. The Cochinchinese, in general, when violently incensed against any one, are accustomed to express a wish that they may be able to devour his liver or his flesh."
Where is human reason and humanity when inclination is unrestrained? It is evident there is no bounds to the tyranny of man. He lords it equally over his own kind and over those he denominates brutes. Nay, there are of the race of man, who exhibit human flesh as a marketable commodity. See "Modern Universal History," vol. 16 passim, but particularly pages 350, 448.
War is the butchery of man by man; a practice in direct opposition to the plainest principles and and express precepts of Christ. It were loss of time to produce quotations. The whole tenor of the doctrines of the New Testament inculcate love, charity, forbearance, meekness, gentleness, and good will. It is only by outrages against all that is delightful in social converse, and beautiful in moral and divine principle, that the heavenly doctrines of our Saviour are perverted and destroyed. Scenes of brutality, drunkenness and gambling are deemed the proper seminaries for those qualities which distinguish the soldier. ​If men will shoot and kill each other, or if they will hack and hew one another to pieces, they cannot be christians, nor can their employers be christians. Christianity inculcates the very reverse. What custom of the most barbarous nations is more repugnant to the feelings of piety, humanity, and justice, than that of deciding controversies between nations by the edge of the sword, by powder and ball, or the point of the bayonet? What other savage custom has occasioned half the desolation and misery to the human race? And what but the grossest infatuation, could render such a custom popular among rational beings?
A war between two nations is generally produced by a small number of ambitious, unthinking, or unprincipled individuals; while the great majority of the nation have no voice in the measure. The more people are enlightened, the greater is their aversion to war.
Duelling is a horrible custom, but war is much more horrible, as it is more desolating and ruinous. War is a species of national duelling, attended by this dishonourable circumstance, that those who give and accept the challenge, call together a multitude of seconds, to whom they pay money to do their business, having not the magnanimity to risk their own lives, bnt involve their seconds in a bloody contest, while they stand remote from danger, as spectators, or directors of the awful combat; or, probably, after issuing their bloody mandate, they indulge in their accustomed pleasures, totally regardless of the sufferings of others.
War does not decide the justice of any question. It only determines which party is the most ferocious and savage. Virtuous but weak nations, have been ​reduced to the greatest subjection, without even a charge of offence or injury. War.makers thus resemble the wild beasts of the forests, who devour the innocent and unoffending.
"The profession of a soldier is in all respects, so contrary to every principle of reason and justice, that it admits of no vindication. Power has sanctioned it, but nothing can change the eternal nature of things, and make the murder of innocent victims either just or honourable; for in every instance, in which war has been undertaken, the men, who, by their ambition and intrigues, have pushed things to extremities, have decided the contest by means of those who were innocent of the quarrel, and finally unconcerned in the event; by men whom ignorance or necessity had compelled to be their dupes, and to betake themselves to fighting, because they were vicious, or indolent, or could find no other employment. Let any man coolly and impartially examine the history of the past and the present times, and say, whether every dispute between nations might not have been settled by negotiations, if the parties had been disposed to listen to common sense, to reason, and justice; and whether every thing should not be resorted to, rather than force; for whoever is the cause of shedding man's blood, except positively to save his own life, is guilty of murder. The fact, however, is, that mankind have been so long accustomed to this barbarous mode of decision, that they think not of any other. Yet, notwithstanding the force of custom, the appearance of necessity, the sanction of time, the power of example, the danger of delay, the strength of our enemies, and the urgency of the case, no war can be justified by that party which has not exhausted every means of conciliation, and proposed every scheme of ​settling differences, without resorting to the sword. To what purpose is it to educate a young man in the principles of generosity and humanity; to make him accomplished, enlightened, and virtuous; and to give him ideas of philanthrophy, benevolence, and affection for his species, if they are all to be obliterated by the horrible inconsistency of making him a licensed robber, or a murderer by profession? Such an education ought to tend rather to banish the sentiments of hatred and hostility, and enforce those of peace and benevolence; for surely all these things are not requisite to murder with greater dexterity, or destroy an enemy with a surer and more certain aim. The end of such an education is inconsistent with it's principles; and while the profession of a soldier continues in society, let those, who are intended for it, remain, as they ought to be, savage, ignorant, and uncivilized, for while wars continue, civilization is not complete."—Burdon's Materials for Thinking, p. 264.
Philo, speaking of the Christians of his own time, says, None can be found among them who manufacture darts, arrows, swords, helmets, breast-plates, nor even such weapons as might be converted to bad purposes in the time of peace; much less do any of them engage in those arts which are useful in war." It is evident, then, nay the conviction compels us to acknowledge the fact, that the people who now assume the name of Christians, are generally impostors, possessing scarcely any thing of the spirit and practice of Christianity; nor do some of those professors stop here, they are profound hypocrites; "they profess to know God but in their works deny him."
"A highwayman is as much a robber, when he plunders in a gang, as when single; and a nation, which ​makes an unjust war, is a great gang.' Franklin's Phil. Papers, p 182.
Dr. Prideaux, in his Connections, vol i, p. 489, has forcibly depicted the inexpressible mischief done to mankind, by mercenary poets and historians, who praise heroes or princes for conquering countries, thereby inciting others to imitate them.
Blessed are the poor in spirit; for their's is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are the meek; for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are the peace-makers; for they shall be called the children of God.—Jesus Christ.
The son of Man came not to destroy men's lives, but to save them.—Luke ix, 56. Why then do not preachers, who pretend to promulgate the doctrine of Christ, inveigh vigourously, in the name of God, against the ambition of potentates; against the sacrilegious laws of war; against the decoration of our churches, dedicated to mercy and charity, with banners won, by shedding the blood of nations? With what face of consistency can they give their benedictions to the standards around which our sanguinary soldiers assemble? Let them refuse their ministrations to every one who contributes toward the increase of human wretchedness. Let them make to the powers who would engage them to consecrate the the instruments of their politics, the reply which the priestess Thæno made, to the people of Athens, when they endeavoured to persuade her to pronounce a malediction on the profane Alcibiades: "lama priestess for the purpose of offering up prayers and imploring blessings; not for execrating and devoting to destruction."—St. Pierre's Works, vol iv, p. 264.
I record, with great pleasure, that the Rev. R. Warner, avery accomplished clergyman of the established ​english church, has had the boldness and virtue to espouse the cause of Christ, by preaching at St. James's Church, Bath, on May 25th, 1804, (being the day of the general fast,) a Sermon on the Inconsistency of War with Christianity. Published by Robinson, London. The following is an extract.
Put up again thy sword, into it's place; for all they who take the sword, shall perish with the sword.—Matt, xxvi, 52.
"However specious thesophistry may be, which stimulates nations to plunge into the horrors of warfare, or induces them to protract their hostilities against each other; however brilliant the successes are with which their arms shall be crowned; whatever acquisitions of territory conquest may unite to their ancient empire; whatever new triumphs shall swell their former fame, or victories enlarge the list of their heroes; it may, notwithstanding, be considered as an incontrovertible axiom, (an axiom confirmed by the history of past ages, and the events of modern times: by the sad appearances of Christendom, and the rueful experience of ourselves,) that war is the greatest curse with which a nation can be afflicted; and that in comparison with the ills and sufferings, the dangers and distresses, the difficulties and privations, which it heaps upon the great mass of the society of a country, all it's imaginary present advantages, or future contingent benefits, are but as "dust in the balance," and as "chaff before the wind."
"If we view this "foul fiend," as trenching apon the rights and claims of humanity; as obliterating, on the one hand, all the lovely charities of natural feeling, and dissipating, on the other, all the felicities of private life; we shall regard the scourge with increased disgust and confirmed abhorrence. Man, ​from the circumstances of his temporary being, subject inevitably to much evil, both physical and moral; dependent and helpless; entirely insufficient to his own defence and support; is furnished by hit all-merciful Creator with principles which may remedy, in some degree, this imperfection of his nature, and provide for wants and deficiencies that solitary effort could not supply. He is made a social being; gifted with feelings which link him to his fellow-creatures in the chain of social harmony; and endowed with a broad benevolence, that includes the desire of reciprocating kindnesses with "all his brethren in the world." To the very root of this natural feeling War directs it's pernicious axe. It's existence depends upon the destruction of this principle. It commences with narrowing the sphere of philanthropy; in it's progress it freezes up all the genial charities of our nature; it's maturity is marked by the extinction of every liberal sentiment: and when it quits the land over which it has exercised it's malignant influence, it leaves the social character of the country barren of all that is amiable and virtuous, benevolent and humane.
But still more distressing (because more personal) is the havock which war exercises on the happiness of private life. Here, no pen is able to describe, no mouth is competent to utter, the various forms of sorrow that mark it's presence, and pursue it's march. "Tho' the whole race of man be doomed to dissolution, and we are all hastening to our long home, yet at each successive moment, life and death seem to divide betwixt the dominion of mankind; and life to have the largest share. But it is otherwise in War. Death reigns here withouta rival, and without controul. War is the work, the element, or rather ​the sport and triumph of Death, who glories not only in the extent of his conquest, but in the richness of his spoil. In the other methods of attack; in the other forms which death assumes, the feeble and the aged, who at the best can live but a short time, are usually the victims; but here it is the vigorous and strong. It is remarked by the most ancient of poets, that in peace children bury their parents, but in war parents bury their children; nor is the difference small. Children lament their parents, sincerely in deed, but with that moderate and tranquil sorrow, which it is natural for those to feel, who are conscious of retaining many tender tics, and many animating objects. Parents mourn for their children with the bitterness of despair. The widowed mother loses, when she is deprived of her children, every thing but the capacity of suffering. Her heart withered and desolate, admits no other object, cherishes no other hope. It is Rachel weeping for her children, and refusing to be comforted, because they are not."—Hall's Reflect on War.
"Transport yourselves but in imagination, for one moment, into the field of battle; and into the wretched countries which are the theatre of war; and surely, if your hearts be not seared to all the impressions of mercy, loving-kindness, and compassion, they will weep tears of blood for the woes which ye will there see accumulated upon suffering humanity. Behold whole ranks of human beings stretched out upon the earth, maimed and mutilated, dying and dead. See peaceful villages reduced to heaps of ruins; fair cities wrapt in flames; and "fruitful lands made desolate." Listen to the mingled din of shouts and shrieks; the yell of the victor, the cry of the vanquished, the groans of the wounded, and the screams ​of the violated. Contemplate, I conjure you, these horrible circumstances, and, if ye have not lost the feelings of nature, ye will lift up your hands and hearts in agonized petition to the Most High, to remove from weeping Christendom a monster bringing in it's train such unspeakable horrors.
"Let it not be forgotten, however, that the influence of war is equally fatal to the morality, as to the happiness, of a country. The habits which a state of warfare necessarily introduces, into a nation, are every way unfavouable to virtue, and encouraging to vice. The authority of the laws, and the sanctions of equity, which peaceful times and a quiet order of things preserve in their strength and purity, are weakened, loosened, and too often overturned, when the military spirit has once seized upon the national character. The restraints which virtue and decency impose upon the conduct, it then becomes fashionable to neglect and despise. A large part Of the community are necessarily withdrawn from their accustomed habits of industry, and their natural domestic relations, and transplanted into a new line of life, and a different set of connections; a life, whose tenour and leisure quickly sow in them the seeds of debauchery and vice; and connections, whose society as rapidly unfolds, matures, and brings these seeds to perfection. People of this description, mingling with the other classes of their fellow citizens, impart to them also the blemishes which they themselves have acquired. Increasing communication produces wider contagion; immorality gradually enlarges her borders, till she obtains, at length, undivided dominion, and entirely obliterates from the national character all the becoming features of order, decency, «nd virtue. So much for the consequences produced ​by war on the internal manners of a country. As it affects the external moral sentiment, or the public feelings of right and wrong, with respect to other nations; it's tendency is to obscure all the obligations of natural justice, and to dissolve all the principles of reasonable, proper, and equitable action.
"Hence the morality of peaceful times is so directly opposite to the maxims of war. The fundamental rule of the first is to do good; of the latter to inflict injuries. The former commands us to succour the oppressed; the latter to overwhelm the defenceless. The former teaches men to love their enemies; the latter to make themselves terrible even to strangers. The rules of morality will not suffer usto promote the dearest interest by falsehood; the maxims of war applaud it, when employed in the destruction of others. That familiarity with such maxims must tend to harden the heart, as well as to pervert the moral sentiments, is too obvious to need illustration. The natural consequence of their prevalence is an unfeeling and unprincipled ambition, with an idolatry of talents, and a contempt of virtue; whence the esteem of mankind is turned from the humble, the beneficent, and the good, to men who are qualified, by a genius, fertile in expedients, a courage that is never appalled, and a heart that never pities, to become the destroyers of the earth. While the philanthropist is devising means to mitigate the evil and augment the happiness of the world, a fellow-worker together with God, in exploring and giving effect to the benevolent tendencies of nature; the warrior is revolving, in the gloomy recesses of his capacious mind, plans of future desolation, terror, and ruin. Prisons crouded with captives, cities emptied of their inhabitants, fields desolate and waste, are ​among his proudest trophies. The fabric of his fame is cemented with tears and blood; and if his name be wafted to the ends of the earth, it is in the shrill cry of suffering humanity, in the curses and imprecations of those whom his sword has reduced to despair!"—Hall.
The conjecture of Dr. Lambe is neither visionary nor romantic, that if all mankind confined themselves for their support to the productions of the earth, war, with it's miseries and horrors, might cease to be one of the scourges of the human race.
SAVAGE AMUSEMENTS AND SPORTS.
Horse-racing has been promoted by royal encouragement, and is followed by the nobles of the land, and by professional sharpers, for the purpose of obtaining money according to a code of laws, which honesty has no concern with, called the laws of honour! This sport is as little connected with humanity as with honesty. The horse is a most useful, willing, noble animal; so tractable, that no person under the influence of reason, can ever think of misusing a creature so distinguished. Yet, there is scarcely a man possessed of a good horse, who fails, either for sport or profit, to push it's goodness to it's destruction, instead of prudently husbanding his good fortune. If a horse can trot ten miles an hour, it is not long before a wager is laid that he trots twelve miles; if this should be accomplished, so much the worse for the excellent beast; higher wagers succeed under an increase of task, till his spirit and powers sink at last under the whip and spur. The Christian savage calculates only what is the difference between the bet and the price of his nag. As to the ​inhumanity of the action, that consideration never enters his stupid brain. It is certain that horses are far more noble, and more valuable animals in this world than five out of ten of their masters.
From a catalogue of cruelty and abuse practised on this beautiful animal, I will adduce only the following.
"A young jockey, who rode for various employers, described, very feelingly, the painful situation in which he then found himself; be had ridden thehorse of a gentleman, who kept several in training, and of whom he had received many favours; but tho' he had exerted all his skill with one horse, he found it impossible to win. He was engaged to ride the same horse again. He represented to his employer the impossibility of winning. His reasoning, however, was not calculated to make any impression on the flinty heart of this Smithfield sportsman. He abused the lad for his tenderness, and his orders were to "Make him win, or cut his entrails out. Mark, if you do not give him his belly-full of whip, you shall never ride again for me. I'll find horse, if you'll find whip and spur!" The generous animal ran three four-mile heats without flinching, with such an excess of exertion, that his eyes seemed ready to start from their sockets, but he was unsuccessful. I saw him, with an aching heart," says our humane author, "literally cut up alive, from his shoulder to his flank, his sheath in ribbands, and his testicles laid bare. To my great mortification, no one rebuked the thick headed miscreant, who was the author of this useless piece of cruelty, except his jockey; who swore he would perish for want, rather than repeat such a business of blasted infamy."—Laurence on Horses. ​On extravagant Bets or Wagers. "I maintain," says Lord Erskine, "that no nan, without being guilty of wilful premeditated and wanton cruelty, can put the strength and indurance of his horse, upon this uncertain and mercenary die, whether in races against time, or rather journeys of great distances within limited periods, the exertions very far exceed the ordinary power which nature has bestowed on the unhappy creature, thus wickedly and inhumanly perverted from the benevolent purposes of their existence—Speech, May 15, 1809.
"Two horses started, April 16, 1793, at White-chapel-church, to proceed 100 miles, that is, to the fifty mile-stone Colchester and back again, in twelve hours. On their return, one of them died at Boreham, the 32d mile-stone, having performed 68 miles of the journey. The other crawled through Chelmsford, with a lad on his back, and died at Widford, the 27th mile-stone, falling short 23 miles." Sherborne Weekly Entertainer, May 27, 1793.
Mr. W⸻'s mare, Tuneful, who has bolted every race she ever ran before, was Tuesday last rode at Newmarket, in winkers, with her tongue tied with whipcord, &c. Salisbury and Winchester journal, April 13, 1801.
At the Harlow Bush fair on Wednesday, a poney, about twelve hands high, was engaged for a wager to run 100 miles in twelve hours. The little animal went sixty miles in six hours, but at the 80th it's heart broke, and it fell down dead." Bell's Messenger, Sep, 21, 1801.
On monday last, a great number of people, from various parts, assembled on the road between Bridgwater and Bristol, being the spot fixed on for determining a wager on the exertions of a horse, which ​was to go in a gig one hundred miles within the space of sixteen hours. The day was remarkably hot and sultry; notwithstanding which the poor animal performed the merciless task in thirteen hours without eating one grain of corn!—Bath Chronicle, June 18, 1807.
Such are the amusements which, in this age of polish and refinement, are denominated, genteel and noble!
Hunting. It is surprising that Hunting should be termed a manly exercise, for "poor," wretchedly poor, "is the triumph o'er the timid hare!" It should rather be called a wild passion, a brutal propensity, or any thing that indicates it's nature. To give it any connection with reason would be to make a union between black and white. Manliness implies some mode of action, that becomes a man. Hunting might, formerly, have been a manly exercise, when the country was overrun with boars and wolves, and it was a public service to extirpate them; but to honour with the name of manliness the cruel practice of pursuing timid animals, and putting them to death, for amusement, is to pervert the meaning of words. In countries where the inhabitants are harrassed by ferocious animals, there may be some plea for converting the destruction of them into a sport, and a test of courage to accelerate their extirpation; but in this island hunting loses all dignity, and degenerates in to mean cruelty. It is, in fact, real cowardice, because there are none but the most inoffensive and timid of creatures to pursue. The. fox is the most troublesome animal we have, and is, of course, the least exceptionable object of the chase; but, even in this instance, our sportsmen cannot assume the merit of vermin-killers: for tho' some thanks may be due ​for destroying them, when very offensive, yet none when gentlemen stock the country again, which is the case, on purpose to renew their savage amusement. There are many ways surely of using manly exercise, at least as healthful and far more innocent, and less expensive and dangerous, than galloping over hedges, gates and ditches. If the manliness of the action lie in the risk you run of breaking your neck for no end, it would still be greater manliness to jump down a precipice. The destruction of an animal is esteemed amusement! strange perversion of feeling! There are persons who take delight in knocking down an ox: if hunting be a more genteel amusement it is certainly a more cruel one.
Detested sport! that owes it's pleasure to another's pain! that feeds upon the sobs, and dying shrieks of harmless nature!—Cowper.
Those practices, barbarous enough to be derived from the Goths, or even the Sythians, are encouraged, in some instances, even by Ladies, and the compliment passed by our huntsmen on those of quality who are present, is truly savage. The knife is put in to the lady's hand to cut the throat of an exhausted, helpless, trembling, weeping creature.
After referring to this practice, Mr. Ritson, adds, "The tender feelings of these elegant fair.ones, never induce them, it seems, to reject this office They contemplate, with equal satisfaction, the poor heron, with it's wings and legs broken, and it's bill stuck in the ground, a living prey to the savage hawk. "Ladies of quality," quotha? rather Gorgons and Furies!"
What glory, what emolument is gained by persecutions so mean, where the completion is so unequal ​that the most puny and base of the human kind can bear away the prize?
The reverend sportsman, instead of slaying the innocent and peaceful tenants of the fields and woods, ought to declaim against such inhumanity and murder in the pulpit, and practice the doctrine himself; but how can this be expected when many hundred thousand lives have been sacrificed in contentions concerning the tenets of Christianity?
Oh, laugh or mourn with me the rueful jest, a cassock'd huntsman! He takes the field. The master of the pack cries, "Well done, saint!" and claps him on the back. Is this the path of sanctity? Is this to stand a way.mark in the road to bliss?—Cowper.
Lord Chesterfield says, Letter 262, that "the French manner of hunting is gentleman-like; our's is only for bumpkins and boobies. The poor beasts are here pursued and run down by much greater beasts than themselves; and the true British fox-hunter is most undoubtedly a species appropriated and peculiar to this country, which no other part of the globe produces."
There are many who quiet the dictates of conscience, by alleging, that "They prefer the business of hunting and shooting, for the sake of exercise, and not for the pleasure of pursuing and destroying animals." The pretence is fallacious, because the exercise of riding may be taken without hunting; and the exercise of walking without shooting. How much superior are the amusements of gardening and agriculture, and how much more innocent are the diversions of bowls, cricket, fives, and such like gymnastics!
Much has been said respecting the propensity of ​dogs to pursue and kill various kinds of animals and birds; but it is evident that no natural propensity of this kind exists; this is evinced by the accidental friendships between animals intended by man to be at enmity. Dogs are capable of being trained to assist men in their savage sports, and their different qualities and shapes fit them for particular purposes of that kind. A dog after being taught to fetch and carry becomes as passionately fond of that exercise as any dog ever did of hunting, and yet nobody undertakes to say that providence made any dog on purpose to fetch and carry. A person, with whom the compiler was acquainted, had a young beagle, which he restrained from following the pack, in order to ascertain the truth of what he had frequently heard asserted, that that species had a natural propensity to pursue and kill hares. After the dog was completely grown up, he took a young hare and confined them together in a room. For some time they kept as far as possible assunder, but, afterwards, a familiarity and friendship gradually took place.
The practice of agriculture softens thehuman heart, and promotes the love of peace, ofjustice and of nature. The excesses of hunting, on the contrary, irritate the baneful passions of the soul; her vagabond votaries delight in blood, in rapine, and devastation. From the wandering tribes of Tartars, the demons of massacre and havoc, have selected their Tamerlanes and their Attilas, and have poured forth their swarms of barbarians to desolate the earth.—Oswald.
Men of refined understanding are never addicted to this vice, and women who delight in the butchery of the chase, should unsex themselves, and be regar ded as monsters.
This brutal pleasure claims, as a sacrifice to the ​impious crime of ingratitude, the tender body of the timorous stag. Why does he not enjoy the same privilege of the inoffensive sheep, whose death is procured with much less pain and torment by the expeditious knife? Why is this trepidating, timorons, weeping, half-humanized animal, selected to procure, by agonizing pain, testified by almost human tears, joy to hearts which should possess superior sympathy as well as superior dignity. Whence is it that the human heart can be so perverted and unnatural, as to receive emotions of pleasure from causes of pity; repay tears, with slaughter; shrieks of pain with acclamations of joy; duration of misery, with the expectation of hope; and the relief of torment by death?
The kings of England seem to have been celebrated hunters. By this sport, one of them, and the son of another, lost their lives. James I, according to Scaliger, "was merciful, except at the chase; he was then cruel, and very angry, when he could not catch the stag. When he had him, he would put his arm entire into the belly and entrails of the beast."
"The hunt, on Tuesday last, commenced near Salthill, and afforded a chace of upwards of fifty-miles. His Majesty was present at the death, near Iring, in Hertfordshire. It is the first deer that has been run to death for many months; and when opened, it's heart strings were found to be quite rent; supposed to have been effected by excessive exertion in running!"—General Advertiser, March 4, 1784.
Let those who can feel no sympathy with the heart-rending groans of the victim, join only with the blood hounds, from whose ravenous fangs the huntsman snatches the prey, in howlings of disappointed brutality. O poverty! if thou art in the enjoyment of ​the passions of hunger, thirst, and lore, thou art to be adored not dreaded; for thou art debarred these infernal pleasures.
Bull-baiting. In several counties of England, particularly in Shropshire and Staffordshire; the cities of Chester and Worcester, the towns of Bilston, Wolverhampton, &c. bulls continue to be baited, both previously to being killed and for sport.
The mere tearing off the tongues, ears and tails, of this intrepid animal, by the dogs, is but a small part of the barbarity practiced on these occasions; their horns are frequently brokeu, and their bodies goaded by sharp irons. Aquafortis, salt, pepper, &c. is then thrown upon the various wounds, in order to enrage him still more. Several dogs are frequently let loose at the same time. In short, they are frequently so completely bruised and mangled, day after day, that they take no food or water, and at length die under an insupportable, and unpitied load of anguish and fatigue. The satisfaction of the baiters is, of course, proportionated to the torment induced and the rage excited.
The following instance of depravity is given by Bingley, in his "Animal Biography." Staffordshire, is said to have had the disgrace of producing this brutality. A monster, in the form of man, laid a trifling wager, at a bull-baiting, that he would, at separate times, cut off all the four feet of the dog, and that after each amputation, it would attack the bull as eagerly as if perfectly whole. He made the experiment, and won the wager. This savage escaped punishment.
But why have recourse to times remote? Recent instances of similar barbarities are numerous. "On the 5th of November, 1801, at Eury, Suffolk, while ​a mob of Christian savages, were indulging themselves in the inhuman amusement of baiting a bull, the poor animal (which was, by nature, perfectly gentle, but which had been privately baited in the morning, and goaded with sharp instruments, in order to render him furious enough for public exhibition), altho' tied down with ropes, in his agony and rage, baited as he was by dogs, and gored by monsters in the shape of men, burst from his tethers, to the great terror of his tormentors, and the no small danger of the inhabitants of the place. After this, the poor beast was doomed to become the victim of still greater barbarity. He was entangled again, with ropes, and, horrible to relate, his hoofs were cut off, and was again baited, defending himself upon his mangled bleeding stumps! The magistrates of Bury have repeatedly attempted to prevent such infernal proceedings, but the demons are sanctioned, it seems, by an act of Parliament. Surely such act is highly disgraceful to the period of the world in which we live, to the country in general, and to the character of the British nation."—Monthly Mag. vol. xii, p. 464.
Let it be recorded in the annals of infamy, that George Staverton, by will, dated May 15, 1661, gave the whole rent of his Stains-house, after two lives, to buy a bull for ever; which bull he gave to the poor of the parish and town of Workingham, Berks, being baited, and the offal, hide, and gift money to be sold, and given in stockings and shoes to poor children. It is thus that an affectation of charity is grafted up on base cruelty. What an insult, and perversion of understanding!
Badger-baiting is the concomitant sport of bull-baiting, and, if possible, is more brutal and abominable, since the animal has less power to defend itself. ​Cock-fighting continues the sport of some of our highest, as well as lowest and meanest ranks of men. This cruel and savage diversion, which is derived from the Greeks and Romans, ranks with the prize-fighting of the latter; but the bloody scenes of an amphitheatre are not tolerated among Christians. The fathers of the church continually inveighed against the spectacles of the arena, and upbraided their adversaries with them. These were more shocking than a main of cocks, but the latter, however, has the very same tendency of infusing a similar ferocity and implacability in the dispositions of men. The cock is not only an useful animal, but stately in his figure, and beautiful in his plumage. His tenderness towards his brood is such, that, contrary to the habit of many other fowls, he will scratch and provide for them with an assiduity almost equal to that of the hen; and his generosity is so great, that, on finding a hoard of meat, he will call the hens together, and without touching one bit himself will relinquish the whole. This bird has been highly esteemed in some countries, and in others held sacred. It is true the Shrove Tuesday massacre is on the decline; and, it is hoped, will soon be in total disuse; but the cock-pit still continues the reproach and disgrace of Englishmen, and of their religion; a religion which, if practiced as much as professed, would reduce them to the mildest, the most compassionate, the best of men. This barbarity has been dignified by it's abettors, with the title of "a royal diversion." It is certain the cock-pit at Whitehall was erected by a crowned head. There was another in Drury-lane, and another in Javlin-street. Cromwell had the honour of prohibiting them. The King of Denmark, when in England, in 1768, on having been invited to one of ​these exhibitions, and after a formal oration addressed to him in their praise, retired with the utmost disgust.
This reproach and disgrace of Englishmen is aggravated by those species of fighting which are called the Battle-royal, and the Welsh-main, known do where else in the world; neither in China, Persia, Malacca, nor among the savage tribes of North America. In the former, an unlimitted number of cocks are pitted, and when they have slaughtered each other for the diversion of their generous and humane masters! the single surviving bird is accounted victor, and carries away the prize. The latter consists, we will suppose, of 16 pairs of cocks; of these the 16 conquerors are pitted a second time; the 8 conquerors of these are pitted a third time; the 4 conquerors a fourth time; and, lastly the two conquerors of these are pitted the fifth time; so that, incredible barbarity! thirty-one cocks must be most inhumanly murdered for the sport and pleasure, the noise and nonsense, the prophane cursing and swearing, of those who have the effrontery to call themselves, with all their bloody actions and inpieties, by the sacred name of Christians; nay, by what with many is a superior and distinct character, men of benevolence, morality and virtue!—See Encyclopæ. Perthensis.
"Are these your sovereign joys, creation's lords? is death a banquet for a godlike soul?"
This sport has received a severe, but very proper and commendable blow, from the resolution of the magistrates of many places, not to grant licences to those inn-keepers who encourage it. By this means bull-baiting in the township of Mitton near Stourport, in Worcestershire has been suppressed.
The tendency of this species of savage barbarity ​may be most readily deduced from numerous instances of malignant passions engendered by this custom; of which the following fact, recorded in the obituary to the "Gentleman's Magazine" for April 1789, is an instance. Died, April 4, at Tottenham, John Ardesoif, esq. a young man of large fortune, who in the splendour of his carriages and horses, was rindled by few country gentlemen. He was Tery fond of cock-fighting; and had a favourite cock, upon which he had won many profitable matches; but he lost his last bet, which so enraged him, that he had the bird tied to a spit and roasted before a large fire. The screams of the miserable animal were so affecting, that some gentlemen, who were present, attempted to interfere; which so enraged Mr. Ardesoif, that he seized a poker, and with the most furious vehemence, declared, he would kill the first man who interposed; but in the midst of his passionate asseverations, he fell dead upon the spot. Such, we are assured, were the circumstances which attended the death of this great pillar of humanity."
Shooting. That strange perverseness which induces man to form a principal amusement on the sufferings rather than the happiness of inoffensive animals, indicates a corrupt and vicious habit. Tho' goaded by no necessity, nor actuated by self-defence, he marks the fields with devastation, rejoices at spectacles of blood, smiles over the struggling expiring victim, and, exulting, cries, "what sport is this!" The first of September is a day licenced by the legislature for the commencement of destruction, and is announced too fatally by the thunder of the gun. Shooting is an expeditious death and has less of cruelty in it than the sports of the chase, when the stroke is effectual; but the most expert markman ​frequently maims without killing, rendering animals a long time miserable; one perhaps has a broken wing, another a shattered leg, and a third left with a broken bill to perish, or, half murdered, to linger out life. A person of unaffected sensibility is an enemy to cruelty, in every shape, and will not carelessly destroy the well-being of the meanest insect. Man regulates his actions towards his fellow-men by laws and customs. Such laws ought to be observed between man and beast, and which are equally coercive, tho' the injured party has no power to appeal.
Persons, accounted goodnatured, will stand whole mornings, by the side of a bridge, shooting swallows, as they thread the arch, and flit past him; others will stand angling for hours together. Such persons should have been bred butchers. What humanity possesses that man, who can find amusement in destroying the happiness of innocent creatures, while sporting during their short summer, or skimming in the air or in the water?
On the coasts of Wales, and other places, where nature has formed rocky barriers against the ocean, sea fowls, of different kinds, frequent them. One whould have thought colonies like these might have been safe from annoy. They are useless when dead, and harmless when alive. It is not however uncommon, with certain savages, to divert themselves with shooting at these birds, as they fly to their nests or return with food for their young! It is not the man's virtue who will wantonly murder a sparrow, which prevents him from murdering a man, his forbearance is the result of effects produced by the penal statutes, those practical essays on morality!
Angling. 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There are persons who abstain from eating the bodies of their fellow animals for a time, but the power of habit recurs, meets with a feeble resistance, and becomes inveterate; while perverted understandings readily assist in recalling them to their wonted state. But the truly independent and sympathizing mind will ever derive satisfaction from the prospect of well-being, and will not incline to stifle convictions arising from the genuine evidences of truth. Without fear or hesitation, he will become proof against the sneers of unfeeling men, exhibit an uniform example of humanity, and impress on others additional arguments and motives. He will never hesitate in "opening his mouth for the dumb," and, if a Christian in deed and in truth, he will never forget that, not even a sparrow is an inconsiderable object in the sight of God; a reflection, which ought effectually to check, both by example or influence, the shocking barbarities, which unfeeling wantonness or studied cruelty are daily exercising towards many unhappy creatures.
In the present diseased state of society, the prospect is far distant when the System of Benevolence is likely to be generally adopted. The hope of reformation then arises from the intelligent, less corrupted, and younger part of mankind.