Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1904-04-01
Freezing and Starving.

Mr.. f. X. Whitehead Of Denver. super
intendent of the Colorado State Board of
Child and Animal Protection. in his pa
per read at the last meeting of the Amer
lean Humane Association on The An
nual Starvation of Cattle on the West
ern Plains" gives the following touching
description of their sufferings:
There is no blacker stain on the civii-
zatOn of this nation than this. Imagine
in December a single animal already gaunt
from cold. hunger and thirst and of the
three, the thirst is most terrible Imagine
this wretched creature wandering about
on an illnitable plain covered with snow,
with nothing to eat except here and there
buried under the snow, sparse tuft Of
scanty moss-like dead grass eating snow
days and weeks because there is nothing
to drink; by day wandering and paving
in the snow, by night lying down in ii,
swept by pitiess winds and ice storms.
always shivering with cold. always gnaw-
ed with hunger, always parched with
thirst, always searching for something to
eat where there is nothing, always star
ing with dumb hopeless eyes. blinded.
swollen and fostering from the suns glare
on the snow. Imagine that and imagine
yourself enduring one hour of it; multi
ply that by twcnty-four; multiply that by
the slow moving nights and days from De
cember to April, If life lasts so long; then
have the statistics of the brute suffering
in this one way for one year and every
year in this unspeakable trade Take all
the brute suffering in the city of New
York for year and it would not Offset
that of the cattle on some single ranches
in the West in one day 1t is like the
figures astronomers give us-meaningless
because we cannot grasp them. The
mind and heart cannot take in what it
means. 1t saddens one for a lifetime to
see the CHASTITY corpses of starved cattle
on The plains, and the still more CHASTITY
living ones. Poor heshless shapes, which
ii seems the strong -clinging life cannot
let go " their dun brains sodden with
suffering they hardly know they suffer still
the very hair on their bodies bleached and
colorless with famine, staggering about
with staring eyes and listless steps, grow
ing ever weaker, until they stumble and
fall in little heaps of hide and bones
which even the coyotes. the scavengers
of the plains, despise and will not touch
ION one single ranch in Texas, last win
ter, five hundred thousand dollars worth
of cattle died. on many ranches half
were lost; on some, three-quarters; on al
most all, many; while all the rest went
down to the very verge of DEATH and sui
fered all it's pain without its relief.
THE owners of these animals are our
best citizens foremost in politics. soci-
ETY., business and religion, warmly clad
eating three square meals a day, and
sleeping in comfortable beds paid for by
the sufferings of these helpless beasts, de-
liberately put out where their owners
know they are dying lingering deaths. but
enough of whom will survive to make a
profit. These respectable gentlemen bit
terly resent any attempt to interfere with
their business, even by the enforcement
of law. In some states they have sue
ceeded in preventing the enactment of
laws for the protection of dumb animals,
on the avowed ground that it would be
bad for their business"