The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1896-08-07
The Attitude Of Women Toward Dumt
Harpers Bazaar.

The Attitude OF Women Toward Dumb
Animals.
| Harpers Bazaar.
| Women have so long been in the habit
OF effacing themselves, and OF being
enaced, In any question of responsibility
outside Of their own households, that
they have never taken the position they
should take In relation TO many affairs
needing reform. Among the matters
| where there is still large debit to their
account is their relation 10 the treatment
| OF dumb animals.
1t Is not yet fully recognized that every
one who takes pet OF any sort into the
family owes 1t something of the ten
derness which nature shows to all living
things in giving them the means to pro-
tect themselves, the cclors to hide them
| selves, the power to feed themselves.
Having taken them out OF wild life, we
owe them all that civilized life can mean
In their regard. But in how many houses
Is 1t faithfully seen that tho dog, their
defender, has his regular, suitable, and
sufficient food, instead Of any chance
bone, his clean drink, his warm bed? In
deed in the matter of drink there is
great domestic SHINING; 1t is taken too
much for granted that the little animals
60 out and care for themselves, and so
no especial provision is made where un-
doubtedly they often suffer cruelty for
water.
To those who take pleasure In the grace
and beauty Of the cat who believe in her
intelligence and affection, the way in
which, when families 60 out of town,
cats are left. like the young lions, to seek
their food from God, sincs man has re-
fused 1t, Is not only something personally
painful, but an evident first lesson in
cruelty to the children of such families.
Even those who do not love the little
animals find their condition miserably
athetic-suddenly turned from the
shelter OF home and friends to the mer-
cies OF outdoor, detected, hungry, home.
less, the target of cruel boys, the prey OF
all their enemies. II the cat cannot ac-
company the family, which II has right
to do, having been made a mem Der of Il,
II should never have been taken i'm the
nrst place, or else il should be either
boarded at q small price at one of the
homes provided In almost every city, or
quietly and painlessly put to sleep. 1t
has been mem Der of the organized
household, useful here and ornamental
there, fed and petted and secure-how
pitiful Is the contrast of its condition
when scurrying through crowded and
hostile streets on Its furtive errands for
poor morsels, croucnina under any pro-
tecting fence or jut In rain and storm,
timid and unhappy, dying weak and
wfetched and starved at last!
But by far the larger portion Of cruelty
makes the horse its victim; and here
again women must be called to account
both Tor active participation In IL and
their passive non-resistance to it. In the
old Gays OF human slavery the accusation
OF cruelty to the slave was answered by
the assertion that the slave was property,
and no man was such fool as to injure
his own property. But the horse Is pre- D.
erty, and we see him misused and abused
every timc we 60 into the street. Not
only Is he too often given the LOAD whose
hauling is an all but insupporta BILE strain,
and fatally injurious one, but his hsr-
ness is allowed to gall him ana to rub over
the sore spot SO that every movement
and every moment is an agony, he Is left
standing 10 blistering heat and binding
sun, he is SO BADLY shod that he wounds
himself, ana for economy's sake bis shoes
are allowed to become so smooth that in
winter he slips on icy and in SUNNI
on worn pavements, to be pulled up with
q murderous jerk and lash, IL he does not
fall and hurt himself in way that
obliges him to be put out of his misery.
We see him again in the more elegant and
stylish teams, checked SO faulty that
the curve of his beautiful neck, In which
the Prince of the Desert delighted, say
ing 1t was clothed with thunder is no
longer q line of beauty but u line OF pain.
But pain Is not hing accounted of In the
matter of horses. We see that in the way
the y are given over to a stupid driver.
who flourishes his whip about them,
vents upon them his angry spleen or the
excitement of his last drink, leaves them
to be startled by unknown accidents,
and revcnges his own neglect by repeated
kicks from heavy boots, given SO vici-
ously that ii takes all your courage to
accost him, shame, rebuke and stop him.
We see it, moreover, in the docking of the
tail and in tho short trim OF tail and
name decreed by fashion, which binders
the fiicKing of OF flies, and creates the
misery Of one OF the cruelest OF the
Chinese death punishments, in which the
victim Is smeared with honey and ex-
posed to flies. One sometimes questions
how IL Is that a woman OF delicate sensi-
bilities can allow herself to drive or be
driven behind horse so mutilated and
so outraged. When women OF fashion
and social power refuse to countenance il,