The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1888-01-29

THE HUMANE ASSOCIATION.

The HUMANE
The general interest taken in the organiza-
don of humane society in this city indicates
wide recognition of the existence Of abuse,
and is also an assurance that when active
measures are taken to suppress them the
society will be supported by public opinion.
The need for such an association il great.
Long freedom from prosecution has led to ex-
hibitions of inhumanity in the treatment of
animals on the streets of Indianapolis which
would not be tolerated elsewhere. Nothing
is more common than to see lame and broken
down horses drawing heavy loads, and goaded
into reluctant and painful progress by kicks
and blows inflicted by brutal drivers. Short
check-reins and sharp bits in constant
use; horses are allowed to stand, unblanketed
and exposed to the weather for hours, after
brisk driving, and all the innumerabie
methods of torture which unfeeling men can
contrive for the beasts that serve
them are in daily operation. No citizen
need 60 half a block without discovering
a. suffering animal of some sort. 1t may be a
dog. cat horse; it is very likely to be a
street-car mule. No more fragrant exhibition
Of cruely can be found than is the daily sight
upon the street-car lines of this city. The
outrageous treatment of these animals is a
matter of .astonished comment from visiting
strangers and is constant source Of distress
to residents and would-be patrons Of the lines
Of travel. It may be bit of news to the
street. railway company, but it is, neverthe-
less, a fact that many men and women put
themselves to great Inconvenience rather than
to ride in cars drawn by the miserable, over
worked creatures attached to them. The
worst abuse begins in requiring two little
mules to draw car over tracks in the ccndi-
ton that those on Indianapolis streets have
been for a month. It is cruelty to compel
them to pull heavily-loaded car under the
most favorable circumstances; but when the
rails are glazed with ice covered with
snow, as has been the recently,
it is simply baroarous. With the man.
of their animals, it is not to be
expected that the drivers will be more consid-
crate. Beat the mules as they may, they can
not keep schedule time, but they do not
therefore desist from beating. Acco riding to
the industry with which the whips are
welded, it is easy to believe the assertions
made by striking drivers, last spring, that
sometimes two or three were worn out in
day. A minister of this city, who referred to
the matter from his pulpit last Sunday, men
toned the case of driver who had beaten
his team without pusing while passing over five
squares of unusually heavy track. Such
instances are by no means uncommon, nor
will they cease to occur under the present
brutal system of management until public
opinion, voiced by the new society, insists
upon the punishment of those who are guilty
of the outrages. The association will find
plenty of business demanding its attention,
and win be hampered, no doubt, by the failure
of the law to cover many cases of cruelty, but
there is sufficient authority to prohibit such
abuses the ones mentioned, and the new
organization cannot do better than to begin
Its reform work right there.