The morning news., 1897-08-28
OUR DUMB ANIMALS.
The Limit Ia Mans Rights over Anil
mails and His Duty TO Them.
From AmiePs Journal

anu nIN hUAN 10 Them.
From Amiel's Journal.
| nave just picked up on the stairs a
little yellowish cat, ugly and pitlable.
Now, curled up in a chair at my side.
he seems perfectly happy and as If he
wanted nothing more. Far from being
wild, nothing viii induce him to leave
me, and he has followed me from room to
room all day. / have nothing at all that
IS eatable in the house. but what | have
| give him-that is to say. look and a
caress-and that seems to be enough for
him at least for the moment. Small ami
mails, small children young lives-they
are all the same as far as the need of
protection and gentleness are concerned
People have sometimes said TO me
that weak and feeble creatures are hap
py with me. Perhaps such a fact has to
DO with some special gift or benefcent
force which flows from one when one Is
In the sympathetic state. l have often a
direct perception Of such a force; but
am no ways proud of it, nor do | look
upon 1t as anything belonging to me but
simply as natural gift 1t seems to me
sometimes as though l could WOO the birds
TO build in my beard as they do in the
headgear Of some ca thedral saint After
all, this is the natural state and the true
relation of man towards all inferior crea-
lures. If maH was what he ought to be
hc NOulu pc dhOItu Dy the animals, Of
whom he Is too often the capricious and
sanguinary tyrant The legend of st.
Francis of Assist Is not so legendary as
we think, and IL is not so certain that It
was the wild beasts who attacked man
first
But, to eXaggerate nothing, let US leave
on one side the beast of prey. the car
nivora. and those that live by rapne and
slaughter How many other species are
there, by thousands and tens of thousands
who ask for peace from us and with whom
we persist IN waging brutal war? Our
race is by far the most destructive, the
most hUrtful, and the most formidable of
all the species Of the Planet. ft has even
invented Tor its own use the right Of the
strongest-a divine right which quiets it's
conscience in the face of the conquered
and oppressed we have outlawed all that
lives, except ourselves. Revolving and
manifest abuse; notorious and contempti-
BILE breach Of the law OF justicel The bad
faith and hypocrisy Of it are renewed on
small scale by all successful usurpers.
We are always making God our accom-
piicc, that we may 80 legalze our own ini-
quities Every successful massacre IS CON
secrated by "A TIE Deum, and the clergy
have never been wanting in benedictions
for any victorious cnormity. So that what
in the beginning was the relation OF man
40 the animal becomes that Of people to
people and man to man.
II 50. We have before use an expiation
too seldom noticed. but altogether Just
All crime must be expiated and slavery is
the repetition among men OF the sufferings
brutally imposed by man upon other liV-
ing beings. IL is the theory bearing les
fruits. The right OF man over che animal
seems 70 ne 10 cease with the need Of de-
fense and OF subsistence. SO that al un-
necessary murder and torture are coward
ice and even crime The animal renders
a service Of utility; man, in return. owes il
a need Of protection and OF kindness In
a word, the animal has claims o. man, and
the man has duties 20 the animal.