III

All the birds cried out in chorus: “No! That would be crow’s work.” And again I felt that I was saved. Then, to my horror, that infernal loon shrieked: “Kill him and have him stuffed—specimen of Ferocious Brute! Or fix his skin on a tree, and look at it—as he did with me!”

For a full minute I could feel the currents of opinion swaying over me, at this infamous proposal; then the old black cock, the one whose tail is in my wife’s hat, said sharply: “Specimen! He’s not good enough!” And once more, for all my indignation at that gratuitous insult, I breathed freely.

“Come!” said the lady bear quietly: “Let us dribble on him a little, and go. The ferocious brute is not worth more!” And, during what seemed to me an eternity, one by one they came up, deposited on me a little saliva, looking into my eyes the while with a sort of horror and contempt, then vanished on the moor. The last to come up was the little meerkat without its head. It stood there; it could neither look at me nor drop saliva, but somehow it contrived to say: “I forgive you, ferocious brute; but I was very happy!” Then it, too, withdrew. And from all around, out of invisible presences in the air and the heather, came once more the shivering whisper: “Look at him! The ferocious brute! Oh, look at him!”

I sat up. There was a trilling sound in my ears. Above me in the blue a curlew was passing, uttering its cry. Ah! Thank Heaven!—I had been asleep! My day-dream had been caused by the potted grouse, and the pressure of theReview, which had lain, face downwards, on my chest, open at the page where I had been reading about the man-eating lions, and the death of those ferocious brutes. It shows what tricks of disproportion little things will play with the mind when it is not under reasonable control.

And, to get the unwholesome taste of it all out of my mouth, I at once jumped up and started for home at a round pace.

The Slaughter of Animals for Food

(Papers in theDaily Mail, 1912.)[2]

The thing is horrible, but it is necessary. Why then drag it out into the light? Why make our thoughts miserable with contemplation of horrors which must exist?

If it were true that the present methods of slaughtering animals for food in this country were necessary, if all the suffering they involve was inevitable, I should be the first to say: “Let us shut our eyes!” For, needless suffering—even to ourselves—is stupid. It is just because this particular suffering is avoidable, and easily avoidable, that one feels we must face the matter if we want to call ourselves a decent people.

I am a meat-eater—we are nearly all meat-eaters. Well! We cannot sit down at present to a single meal without complicity in methods that produce a large amount of preventable suffering to creatures for whom the least sensitive among us has at heart a certain friendly feeling. For, to those who say that they do not care for animals, or that animals, even domestic ones, have no rights except such as for our own advantage we accord them, let me at once reply: I do not agree, but for the sake of argument, granted; and then conceive, if you can, a world without cattle, sheep, and pigs, and tell me honestly whether you do not miss something friendly. No! the fact is, we, who are the descendants of countless generations to whom these animals have been literally the breath of life, cannot—even now that we have become such highly civilized townsmen—disclaim all sensibility in their regard.

Consider the magnitude of this matter. The calculations of an expert give the following approximate numbers of animals annually killed for food in England and Wales: 1,850,000 beasts, 8,500,000 sheep, and 3,200,000 pigs. These figures are hard to come at, and may be a million or so out, one way or the other, but even if they be, is there any feature of the national life which can touch this for possibilities of preventable physical suffering? And is there any department so neglected by public opinion and the law?

Save the eating of bread, have we any practice in our lives so consistent as that of eating meat, or any from which we, perhaps wrongly, consider that we derive more benefit, or any about whose conditions, sanitary or humane, we are so careless?

If a donkey is beaten to death, a dog stoned, or a cat killed with a riding-whip, the chances are that a prosecution will ensue or a question be asked in Parliament; for public opinion and the law lay it down that the infliction of unnecessary suffering on animals is an offence punishable by fine or imprisonment. But if in slaughter-houses some 8,000,000 sheep are killed yearly,without first being stunned, by a method which, even in the hands of an expert, produces some seconds of acute suffering (Report of the Admiralty Committee on Humane Slaughtering of Animals, 1904); if thousands of cattle require two or more blows of that primitive instrument, the pole-axe (if even only one in a hundred cattle requires a second blow it means 18,000 in a year); if pigs are driven in gangs into a small space and there killed, one by one, with the others squealing in terror round their dead bodies; if all this preventable suffering is inflicted daily in our slaughterhouses, what does public opinion know of it, and what does the law care?

There was a time in this country when men beat their donkeys, set cocks fighting, baited bears and badgers, tied tin pots to dogs’ tails, with the lightest of light hearts and no consciousness at all that they were outside the pale of decency in doing so. We, their descendants, now look on the unnecessary suffering involved in such doings with aversion; but we still allow our sheep and pigs to be killed without stunning, our pigs to be driven in gangs into the slaughtering chamber, and the uncertain pole-axe to be used for cattle—all without a qualm.

Why should this enormous field, wherein does occur such an amount of easily preventable suffering, be left so unpatrolled by the law, which has interested itself in warding off all needless suffering from cats and dogs and horses? Well! The law stands idle partly because the animals we kill for food are not so near and dear to us as those others. We should never stand the horses and dogs and cats we make such pets of being killed when their time comes in the manner in which we kill our sheep and pigs. And partly the law stands idle because in the case of horses and dogs and cats there is no large leagued interest, such as that of the meat trades, unconvinced of the need for improvement.

I am told that the meat trades constitute the strongest body in the kingdom. And well they may, considering the vast proportions of their business. The meat trades are controlled by men like ourselves—as humane, and undesirous of inflicting unnecessary suffering. Surely they will reconsider their convictions and accept such simple, elementary safeguards against unnecessary suffering as were outlined by the Admiralty Committee on Humane Slaughtering, of 1904. There is nothing really prejudicial to their interest in these suggestions. Nothing extravagant, or experimental. The case has been proved up to the hilt. What is the good of appointing a governmental committee of first-rate men[3]to examine into facts if their Report is to be paid about as much attention to as one would pay to the suggestions of seven lunatics? Why set going a laborious inquiry, for negligible or puny results? It can no longer be pretended that humane-killers are not effective, in the face of so much evidence from abroad; in the face of numerous testimonials from butchers in this country; in the face of the fact that Mr. Christopher Cash (for whose consistent advocacy of humane slaughtering the thanks of us all are due) in the year 1910 had 4,000 animals, the property of thirty butchers, killed by “humane” methods, and though he was in every case willing to pay full compensation for any injury he might do to a carcase, had not one single claim made on him. (From a pamphlet entitled “The Humane Slaughtering of Animals for Food,” by Christopher Cash. Issued by the R.S.P.C.A.).

Butchers and slaughtermen perform a necessary task from which most of us would shrink, and it is both unbecoming and nonsensical to suggest intentional cruelty on their part.I do not for a moment.But I do say that it is the business of the law so to control the methods of slaughter as to obviate to the utmost all needless suffering, however unintentionally it may be inflicted.

In the following brief summary of our want of system I am not dealing at all with the Jewish method of killing, for not being a Jew, I cannot pretend to be qualified to discuss a custom which appears to have been necessary hitherto to the peace of the Jewish mind. I only urge a people in some respects more humane than ourselves to search their consciences, and see if they can still endure this method. Neither am I speaking as to Scotland, which is ahead of us, having provided by the Burgh Police Act, of 1892, that where there are public there shall be no private slaughter-houses; and where—at all events in Edinburgh—they have abattoirs that compare, I am told, with the best on the Continent.

The following is a rough outline of what at present seems good to a nation which prides itself on being at once the most practical and the most humane in the whole world: —

A mixed system of private and public slaughter-houses—thousands of private slaughter-houses (some of them highly insanitary) alongside of a few municipally controlled abattoirs.No regulation that where there are public abattoirs there shall be no private ones;hencegreat difficulty in making these public slaughterhouses pay their way.Inspection of private slaughter-houses, in spite of all the good intentions of local authorities and medical officers, admitted to be very inefficient in so far as condition of meat and method of slaughter are concerned.Supervision of public slaughter-houses much hampered by the present widespread custom of allowing butchers to send in their beasts with their own slaughtermen.No general statutory regulations as to method of slaughter. Model by-laws have been drawn up by the Local Government Board and recommended to local authorities—but they are not compulsory and have been as yet but sparsely adopted.Slaughtermen not licensed; nor—except in slaughterhouses directly controlled by a Government Department (such as the Admiralty)—required by law to be proficient before they commence slaughtering.

A mixed system of private and public slaughter-houses—thousands of private slaughter-houses (some of them highly insanitary) alongside of a few municipally controlled abattoirs.

No regulation that where there are public abattoirs there shall be no private ones;hencegreat difficulty in making these public slaughterhouses pay their way.

Inspection of private slaughter-houses, in spite of all the good intentions of local authorities and medical officers, admitted to be very inefficient in so far as condition of meat and method of slaughter are concerned.

Supervision of public slaughter-houses much hampered by the present widespread custom of allowing butchers to send in their beasts with their own slaughtermen.

No general statutory regulations as to method of slaughter. Model by-laws have been drawn up by the Local Government Board and recommended to local authorities—but they are not compulsory and have been as yet but sparsely adopted.

Slaughtermen not licensed; nor—except in slaughterhouses directly controlled by a Government Department (such as the Admiralty)—required by law to be proficient before they commence slaughtering.

These are the methods of slaughter we adopt at present: —

Cattleare almost universally stunned before their throats are cut. So far—good! But they are still, for the most part, stunned with the pole-axe. This weapon produces complete unconsciousness at the first blow,if well wielded.If not well wielded——! I have been assured that the cases of misfire amount to a very small percentage. But I can only say, on the first two beasts slaughtered before my eyes the first blow of the pole-axe—wielded in each case by an experienced slaughterman—descended without effect. The animals moaned, and waited for the second and successful blow. Thanks to the efforts of the Royal Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the Council of Justice to Animals, the Humanitarian League, of Mr. Christopher Cash, and others, there are now a considerable number of improved instruments for stunning cattle in use—the Greener and Behr pistols; the Royal Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals humane-killer and large captive-bolt pistol; the Swedish Cattle-killer (used throughout Scandinavia), and others. But the number of these improved instruments in use at present is only a fringe to the mass of time-hallowed and uncertain pole-axes.

Calves.—“The usual practice in this country appears to be to run the animal up first (by a tackle fastened to its hind legs) and then to stun it, previous to bleeding.” (Report of the Admiralty Committee.) On this method the Committee thus commented: “This order of procedure is not so humane, and appears to be unnecessary.” . . . “Calves should first be stunned by a blow on the head with a club”—i.e., before being run up.When this Committee conducted its investigation in 1904, the best humane-killers had not been invented, or were not known here.

Sheep, with few exceptions, are not stunned before they are bled. The method of killing them and the amount of suffering they undergo are thus summed up in the Report of the Admiralty Committee:

“The usual method in this country is to lay the sheep on a wooden ‘crutch’ and then to thrust a knife through the neck below the ears, and with a second motion to insert the point from within between the joints of the vertebrae, thus severing the spinal cord. In the hands of an expert this method is fairly rapid but somewhat uncertain, the time whichelapses between the first thrust of the knife and complete loss of sensibility varying, according to Professor Starling’s observations, from five to thirty seconds. In the hands of an inexpert operator it may be some time before death supervenes, and there can be little doubt that this method must be very painful to the sheep as long as consciousness remains.“At the best it is a somewhat difficult operation and yet in practice is often entrusted to the younger and less experienced hands in the slaughter-house, the probable reason being that sheep are easy to handle, and do not struggle or give trouble when stuck. . . .”

“At the best it is a somewhat difficult operation and yet in practice is often entrusted to the younger and less experienced hands in the slaughter-house, the probable reason being that sheep are easy to handle, and do not struggle or give trouble when stuck. . . .”

In other words, the more helpless the creature the less need for humanity!

“In Denmark and many parts of Germany and Switzerland the law requires that sheep shall always be stunned previous to being stuck, and the Committee have satisfied themselves, by practical experiments and observation, that this can be done expeditiously and without difficulty. A small club with a heavy head should be used, and the sheep should be struck on the top of the head between the ears. This point is important, as it is almost impossible to stun a sheep by striking it on the forehead. . . . It was also clearly demonstrated that the stunning caused no injury to the sheep’s head or to the ‘scrag of mutton’ which could in any way depreciate their market value.”

Notwithstanding this recommendation, the Local Government Board had (up to 1915) omitted from their model by-laws (which, as before said, are not obligatory) a regulation requiring the stunning of sheep. In 1915, however, they added the following alternative clause:

“9 (b). A person shall not in a slaughter-house proceed to slaughterany animaluntil the same shall have been effectually stunned with a mechanically operated instrument suitable and sufficient for the purpose.”

And in their memorandum they say:

“At the present time the Board understand that a ‘humane-killer’ can be got which is adapted for stunningany kind of animal, reasonable in cost, and effective and simple in operation. It appears, too, that the use of the improved instruments can readily be learnt, so that no prolonged training is needed for their proper manipulation.”

One can only hope that every Local Authority will now adopt this clause, and insist on the stunning of sheep as well as of all other animals.

Pigs.—“The Committee ascertained that it is the usual practice inlarge establishmentsin England to stun pigs by a blow on the forehead previous to sticking them, and there is no difficulty in carrying this out, as the pig’s head is soft as compared with that of the sheep. The Committee are of opinion that the preliminary stunning should be enforced in all cases, the evidence tending to show that this operation is often limited to pigs which are so large or strong as to give trouble, or to cases where, owing to the location of the slaughter-house, the squeals of the stuck pigs cause annoyance to the neighbourhood.The Committee feel that considerations of humanity are at least as important as those above mentioned.”

A sentiment with which most of us will presumably agree. Note, however, that the Admiralty Committee refer above only tolargeestablishments. Pigs still appear to be killed in ways that the following quotation describes:

“I, with another witness, saw five pigs killed—three small ones and two large ones. The pigs were ‘knifed’ one at a time and allowed to wander round the slaughter-house bleeding and in a drunken, reeling, rolling state, and at the same time uttering most plaintive cries.” (From a letter to a daily journal.)

And Mr. R. O. P. Paddison (one of the foremost workers in the cause of humane slaughtering) thus describes the method adopted in most of our bacon factories:

“First the animals are hung up alive head downwards by a chain fastened to a hind foot, and then they are stuck and bleed to death. The work is done quickly in a collective sense—at the rate possibly of 100 to 200 pigs an hour, but each individual pig suffers from forty seconds to two or three minutes, and several pigs struggle and shriek at the same time.”

I have not personally witnessed either of the methods so described.

I understand that some bacon-curers consider, or did consider, stunning cruel, on the ground that several blows were often required. The use of humane-killers disposes of this objection.

The late eminent physiologist, Sir Benjamin Ward Richardson, in a paper read before the Medical Society of London some years ago, says:

“Pigs, I have said,suffer a mental terror of death, and to them commonly is also given a severe degree of physical pain. . . . When they are killed by the knife alone they die by a hæmorrhage that may extend with persistent consciousness over three or four minutes of time.”

In relation to the pig’s mental horror of death, I myself saw the following sight:—Fifteen or so pigs in a slaughtering chamber just large enough to hold them and the slaughterer. Of these pigs three or four had already been stunned and knifed and lay dead and bleeding among their living brethren, who with manifest terror were squealing and straining here and there against the walls, while the slaughterer moved about among them selecting the next victim. A blow, a cut, and there was another dead pig, and this would go on, no doubt, till the whole fifteen were despatched and their bodies shot down the slide. Terror of death! Yes! At all this, by the way, a boy of about thirteen was looking on—and this in a public slaughter-house with a good superintendent and under municipal control.

Segregation of Animalsabout to be slaughtered from slaughtering operations.—“It appears to be the common practice, even in modern and well-regulated slaughter-houses, to keep the animals, which are immediately awaiting slaughter, in pens which are mere annexes to the slaughter chamber itself, and in many cases in full view of all that goes on inside . . . There is no point which the Committee have more carefully investigated than the question as to whether animals do or do not suffer from fear from this contact, and the evidence of those best qualified to judge is so conflicting that no absolute verdict can be given . . . The animal should be given the full benefit of the doubt.” (Report of the Admiralty Committee.)

But the animal isnotgiven the benefit of the doubt. Whatever the degree of consciousness of animals awaiting slaughter (sometimes for a whole hour) just divided by a door which, all regulations to the contrary, is far from always shut, whether they know or not that it is death which awaits them, any spectator accustomed to animals in their normal state has only to look at their eyes, as they stand waiting, to feel sure that they are in fear of something.

Such then, in brief and in rough, are the conditions and methods of slaughter which still seem good to us. When the Admiralty Committee issued their report in 1904 they made the following recommendations: —

(a) All animals (cattle, calves, sheep, lambs, and pigs) without exception must be stunned or otherwise rendered unconscious before blood is drawn.(b) Animals awaiting slaughter must be so placed that they cannot see into the slaughter-house, and the doors of the latter must be kept closed while slaughtering is going on.(c) The drainage of the slaughter-house must be so arranged that no blood or other refuse can flow out within the sight or smell[4]of animals awaiting slaughter, and no such refuse shall be deposited in proximity to the waiting pens.(d) If more animals than one are being slaughtered in one slaughter-house at one time they must not be in view of each other.(e) None but licensed men shall be employed in or about slaughter-houses.

(a) All animals (cattle, calves, sheep, lambs, and pigs) without exception must be stunned or otherwise rendered unconscious before blood is drawn.

(b) Animals awaiting slaughter must be so placed that they cannot see into the slaughter-house, and the doors of the latter must be kept closed while slaughtering is going on.

(c) The drainage of the slaughter-house must be so arranged that no blood or other refuse can flow out within the sight or smell[4]of animals awaiting slaughter, and no such refuse shall be deposited in proximity to the waiting pens.

(d) If more animals than one are being slaughtered in one slaughter-house at one time they must not be in view of each other.

(e) None but licensed men shall be employed in or about slaughter-houses.

What has been done to carry out these recommendations, the fruit of most thorough and laborious investigations carried out at a considerable expenditure of public money and presumably with some object, by men well qualified for their task?

Just this much has been done. The recommendations have been adopted and are worked successfully by the Admiralty themselves, and they form the basis of certain clauses in the Local Government Board’s Voluntary Model Bye-laws, to which attention is only just beginning to be paid.

Seeing that the condition of affairs is such as I have detailed; seeing that the Admiralty Committee made the following wise remarks: “However humane and scientific in theory may be the methods of slaughter, it is inevitable that abuses and cruelty may result in practice, unless there is a proper system of official inspection”; and: “In the interests not only of humanity, but of sanitation, order, and ultimate economy, it is highly desirable that, where circumstances permit, private slaughter-houses should be replaced by public abattoirs, and that no killing should be permitted except in the latter under official supervision”; seeing the enormous dimensions of this matter, and that our methods are behind those of nearly every Continental country, and very much behind those of Denmark, Switzerland, and Germany, it would occur to the simple mind that here was eminently a case for broad and sweeping action on the part of the Legislature.

I have not even thought it worth while to dwell on theinsanitaryaspect of the present system, because the Royal Commission on Food from Tuberculous Animals (again at a considerable expenditure of public money) reported thus—“The actual amount of tuberculous disease among certain classes of food animals is so large as to afford to man frequent occasions for contracting tuberculous disease through his food. We think it probable that an appreciable part of the tuberculosis that affects man is obtained through his food”—practically without effect! If the public likes to spend its money on ascertaining a risk to itself and likes to disregard that risk to itself when ascertained, far be it from me to gainsay the public. But if any one be interested in the sanitary side of our want of system, let him go to the superintendent of some large public slaughter-house and ask what percentage of meat is condemned daily; then let him ask some medical officer of health how far it is possible to inspect the condition of carcases inprivateslaughter-houses; and then let him go home and think! There I leave the matter. For, frankly, it is not this, but the disregard by the public of needless suffering inflicted on helpless creatures, bred and killed for its own advantage, that moves me. Surely no one can call the following suggestions unreasonable:

No animal to be bled before being stunned (or otherwise rendered instantaneously insensible).No animal to be slaughtered in sight of another animal.No slaughter-refuse and blood to be allowed within sight or smell of an animal awaiting slaughter.No stunning or slaughtering implement to be used that has not been approved by the Local Government Board.The licence of no slaughter-house to be renewed unless it possesses these approved stunning and slaughtering implements, a copy of official instructions how to use them, and can prove that it does use them and them alone.All offenders against these regulations to be liable to penalties on summary conviction.

No animal to be bled before being stunned (or otherwise rendered instantaneously insensible).

No animal to be slaughtered in sight of another animal.

No slaughter-refuse and blood to be allowed within sight or smell of an animal awaiting slaughter.

No stunning or slaughtering implement to be used that has not been approved by the Local Government Board.

The licence of no slaughter-house to be renewed unless it possesses these approved stunning and slaughtering implements, a copy of official instructions how to use them, and can prove that it does use them and them alone.

All offenders against these regulations to be liable to penalties on summary conviction.

Why has not this simple harmless minimum of decent humanity been—as in other countries—long ago adopted? For the usual reasons: Dislike of change; dislike of a little extra trouble and a little extra expense; liberty of the subject. To take the last point first. Dictate to a man how he shall slaughter his own animals—what next! Well! I am all for liberty of the subject. I am for letting him hurthimselfas much as ever he likes. I even go so far as to say that prosecutions for attempted suicide are wrong and ridiculous; but where the subject claims to hurt the helpless with impunity, then it seems to me time to hurt the subject.

I fancy that in most men’s minds there lurks the feeling: “Oh! a little extra suffering to animals who are going to die anyway in a minute or two—what does it matter? Now, if you were to put it on the ground that it hurts the slaughterer, there’d be something in it!” Yes! It certainly may hurt themoraleof the slaughterer—but not much, for he inflicts the needless sufferingwithout consciousness of cruelty; and ill actions of which one is not conscious only negatively deterioratemorale, in so far as they are a waste of time in which good actions might have been performed. But to say that it does not matter whether we needlessly hurt the sheep or pig because they are going to die anyway is really to say that no suffering matters, however unnecessary, since we must all die and it will be all the same a hundred years hence. It is at all events not a saying that I can imagine coming out of the mouth of a human being in perfect health and the possession of all his faculties, with a knife going in just behind his right ear and wiggling about in his neck and head till it finds his spinal cord between the joints of his vertebræ. And though you may think that the infliction of some seconds of excruciating torture on an animal does not really hurt the animal because she cannot tell you that it does—it conceivably might hurtyoua little to feel it was needlessly inflicted.

The meat-trades and butchers generally deny the need for change, and claim that the humanity of existing methods cannot be improved on. I really cannot understand this. Take for example two conversations I had with quite humane butchers.

I: “So you never stun your sheep before bleeding them?”

First Butcher: “Oh! no.”

“Why not?”

“It isn’t necessary.”

“Not to avoid pain?”

“Oh! no; there’s no pain.”

Ten minutes later:—

I: “You always stun your cattle before bleeding them?”

Same Butcher: “Oh! yes, always.”

“Why!”

“Oh! it avoids a lot of pain.”

To the second butcher:—

I: “Then you never stun your sheep before bleeding them.”

Second Butcher: “No, never.”

“Why not? Is there any objection?”

“No, I don’t see any objection; only it’s never done. I’ve never seen a sheep stunned.”

“Just custom?”

“Yes, just that.”

The old, ignorant prejudice that animals do not bleed freely if stunned first is now, I think, never advanced.

So much for custom and dislike of change.

But now we come to what is perhaps the real gravamen of the resistance—a little extra trouble, a suspicion of extra expense. This touches all the points in the irreducible minimum of reform. For instance, the various R.S.P.C.A. humane-killers cost about thirty-five shillings; the Swedish cattle-killer ten shillings and sixpence, with cartridges four shillings per hundred. You must spend perhaps an hour in learning how to use them, and five minutes or so per day in cleaning them. They are still new things—“fads”—although they have passed all tests, been proved by dozens of testimonials from butchers in this country to be perfectly efficient;and the Swedish cattle-killer is used throughout several countries.

Again, it is convenient not to have to be careful to shut doors between slaughtering chambers and animals awaiting slaughter, or to have to pave your floors so that blood runs well away from the waiting pens. It is handy (especially in ill-constructed slaughter-houses) to kill animals in sight of each other. It is always, in fact, a nuisance to make any change that involves readjustment. And unfortunately animals have no force behind them, are not represented on the public bodies of the country; cannot lobby in the House of Commons, withdraw votes or commit outrages; cannot instruct counsel; have no rights save those which mere chivalry shall give them. “Besides,” says Defence, “everything is already done as well as it can be done. Switzerland, Denmark—who knows whether they are really better? The ways of our own country are good enough for us—the good old-fashioned methods—if there were any real need for reform we should be the first to undertake it!” Waste-paper, then, the Admiralty Report! Waste-paper!

I have reckoned that in the case of sheep alone the amount of needless suffering inflicted must amount to some 33,000 hours of solid, uninterrupted death agony each year (number of sheep slaughtered without stunning, 8,000,000; period of suffering, five to thirty seconds—Admiralty Committee’s report)—all preventable by a few strokes of the legislative pen.

But the truth is we don’t reflect; or if by any chance we do, we pass on with the thought: “Nothing can be done till the butchers themselves are convinced!” Is that true?

Just this far true: As in every other case of new law, there would be required at first a little special activity. It is only a question of starting a new standard. In two years’ time, if these simple, harmless regulations concerning the slaughter of animals for food were enforced—not merely recommended, as now—there would hardly be an animal in this country bled without first being stunned by humane methods, or any beasts watching their fellows being killed.

I attack no one in this matter; I blame no one, for I am not in a position to—the charge of callousness falls heavily on my own shoulders, who have eaten meat all these years without ever troubling as to what went before it. Nor can I hope that these words will do more than ruffle the nerves of the public; but I do trust that such of our legislators as may chance to read them may be moved to feel that it is their part to save patient creatures, who cannot plead in their own behalf, from all suffering that the proper satisfaction of our wantsdoes not compelus to inflict on them.

If what I have written has seemed extravagant, he who reads has only to go and see for himself. And let those who would attack this plea train their guns on the Report of the Admiralty Committee, 1904. For I have but conveniently summarized the unanimous verdict of able and disinterested men, who, officially appointed to examine the whole matter, held many sittings, heard many witnesses, saw with their own eyes, and made their own experimental investigations. I have, in fact, done nothing but give an added publicity to the deliberate conclusions of an impartial tribunal, which had an unique opportunity of forming and delivering a comprehensive, dispassionate judgment, and delivered it—to what end?

[2]Things have moved a little, I believe, but not nearly enough.—J. G.

[2]

Things have moved a little, I believe, but not nearly enough.—J. G.

[3]The Admiralty Committee on Humane Slaughtering, 1904 Chairman, Mr. Arthur Lee, M.P.

[3]

The Admiralty Committee on Humane Slaughtering, 1904 Chairman, Mr. Arthur Lee, M.P.

[4]I believe it is the smell of blood, rather than the sight, which affects animals.—J. G.

[4]

I believe it is the smell of blood, rather than the sight, which affects animals.—J. G.

On Performing Animals

(A Letter to theDaily Express, 1913.)

Writing from the standpoint of one whose love of animals at one time caused him to enjoy the spectacle of them performing tricks and capers, into the educational history of which he never thought of going, I believe I well understand the attraction of “the animal show” in music-halls or circuses. Nor do I doubt that there are animal trainers with such a natural gift and love of beasts that the process of training becomes almost pleasurable to creatures who are not by nature intended to ape mankind.

I even believe that there may be animals, especially among dogs, who grow to appreciate the glamour of the footlights, and the sense of their own importance. But when all this is said, I have come to abominate the thought of the whole thing, and I fancy that any one who takes the trouble to think the matter out, any one who does not allow his natural delight in animals to run away with his sense of proportion and the fitness of things, must come to the same conclusion.

To simply bring a horse, a dog, a cat, or even an elephant or camel on the stage as part of the atmosphere or machinery of a play, treating it with the kindness that is invariable I believe in such cases, is one thing, and I by no means object to it. But the deliberate training and use, for the purpose of making a living out of them, of numbers of animals, taking them from place to place, hall to hall, suitable or unsuitable, is a very different “proposition,” as Americans would say.

The very nature of it invites suffering. And I do not well see how any amount of inspection and the granting of licences is going to do away with the greater part of a wretchedness that comes from forcing creatures away from more or less natural to highly unnatural conditions of life; nor can I see how, for the purpose of granting licences, satisfactory evidence is ever going to be obtained that training (which is and must be quite a private affair between trainer and animal) is not accompanied by cruelty.

In a word, I would like to see the “animal show” abolished in this country. It is too ironical altogether that our love of beasts should make us tolerate and even enjoy what our common sense, when we let it loose, tells us must, in the main, spell misery for the creatures we profess to be so fond of.

(A Speech made at Kensington Town Hall, 1913.)

I am here to say a very few words on the whole question of the treatment of animals by our civilized selves. For I have no special knowledge, like some who will speak to you, of the training of performing animals; I have only a certain knowledge of human and animal natures, and a common sense which tells me that wild animals are more happy in freedom than in captivity—domestic animals more happy as companions than as clowns. And, quite apart from the definite question of inhumanity, it is perfectly clear to me that these animal shows are among the many surviving evidences, the lingering symptoms, of a creed that—thank Heaven!—is beginning to pass, and must pass, from us. That creed said: We human beings have the right, for our pleasure, convenience, and distraction, to disregard, in the matter of dumb creatures, those principles which our religion, morality, and education fix as the guiding stars of our conduct towards human beings. (Please note that I do not touch on the question of our rights over dumb creatures in so far as our actual self-preservation is concerned; I limit my words to pleasure, convenience, profit, and distraction.)

Now, “Do unto others as you would they should do unto you!” is not only the first principle of Christianity, but the first principle of all social conduct—the essence of that true gentility which is the only saving grace of men and women in all ranks of life. And I am certain that the word “others” cannot any longer be limited to the human creature. Whether or no animals have what are called “rights” is an academic question of no value whatever in the consideration of this matter. But, lest there be any one who wishes to take up this point of abstruse philosophy, I admit at once that animals have no more rights than have babies under the age when they may be said to have duties (on which rights, we are told, depend), that animals have no more rights than imbeciles, or those who are deaf, dumb, and blind. Rights or no rights, I care not; the fact remains that by so much as we inflict on sentient creaturesunnecessarysuffering, by so much have we outraged our own consciences, by so much fallen short of that secret standard of gentleness and generosity, that, believe me, is the one firm guard of our social existence, the one bulwark we have against relapse into savagery. Once admit that we have the right to inflict unnecessary suffering, and you have destroyed the very basis of human society, as we know it in this age. You have committed blasphemy, the only blasphemy that really matters—against your conscience. For the true conscience of this country is proved by the wording of the law, with its ruling that the infliction of unnecessary suffering is an offence; and in a country like this, the law does not precede, but follows, conscience. Let me quote the law, and the latest judicialdictumupon it.

Section 1 (1) of the Protection of Animals Act, 1911:

“If any person (a) shall cruelly ill-treat any animal . . . or being the owner shall by . . . unreasonably doing or omitting to do any act . . . cause any unnecessary suffering,” he shall be guilty of an offence.

And Mr. Justice Darling, on November 19th, 1913, said:

“Where unnecessary suffering is caused by some act of an owner, it cannot be justified on the ground of old custom, and of benefit to commercial persons.”

Nothing so endangers the fineness of the human heart as the possession of power over others; nothing so corrodes it as the callous or cruel exercise of that power; and the more helpless the creature over whom power is cruelly or callously exercised, the more the human heart is corroded. It is recognition of this truth which has brought the conscience of our age and with it the law, to say that we cannot any longer with impunity regard ourselves as licensed torturers of the rest of creation; that we cannot, for our own sakes, afford it.

In all this matter, then, of the treatment of animals it comes to the definition of the words “unnecessary suffering.” And I say this: All suffering that is inflicted merely for our pleasure, distraction, and even for our convenience, and profit, as distinct from our preservation, is unnecessary and an abomination. And the fact that it is inflicted on creatures unable to raise hand to help themselves, or voice to tell us what they suffer, makes it ever the more abominable. Whether it be the destruction of mother-birds (with their whole families of nestlings) for the sake of the nuptial plumes to be worn in the hats and hair of human mothers, or the painful docking of the tails of horses, their sole weapon against the torment of stinging flies, for the sake of an ugly fashion; whether it be the treacherous sale of horses worn out in our service, the snaring of rabbits in needlessly cruel traps, the turning adrift of friendly but unwanted dogs and cats; whether it be the unnecessarily slow and painful slaughtering of animals for food, the wretched keeping in captivity of wild song-birds, the prisoning of eagles, hawks, and many another creature that cannot bear confinement, in zoos and other places; whether it be any of these, or this sometimes distressing and always unnatural training of performing animals, in all suffering is inflicted for our pleasure, distraction, convenience or profit, and all of it is unnecessary, all against the conscience of the age.

To those who, tempted by the devil of irreflection, say “But this is the creed of sentiment and softness,” I return the answer, “Sirs, no man ever became a stoic, and acquired the virtues of fortitude and courage, by inflicting pain on others.” There is nothing in this new creed that prevents any one from inflicting on himself as much hardship, risk, and privation as he considers needful to inspire him with fortitude.

Let me draw your attention to an anomaly, which accounts for most of our callousness towards the sufferings of animals. Nearly every one who witnesses with his own eyes the infliction of needless pain on an animal feels revolted, and even hastens to the creature’s aid; yet these same men and women, or the vast majority of them, merely hearing or reading of such things, pass by on the other side, with the feeling that to pay attention would be either credulous or sentimental. Now, in regard to credulousness, note that it is hardly ever to the interest of any one to draw attention to cruelty—certainly not to fabricate such a charge; very much the contrary. And in regard to sentiment, there seems to be a slight confusion as to the meaning of that word. A man only moved by cruelty seen with his own eyes is no whit less sentimental than the man who takes fire at the mere recital of it; he is only more deficient in understanding, more cautious in judgment, or more sluggish in blood. Just as sentimental, but less sensitive. The longer I live the more I become convinced that people only use that favourite reproach—sentimental—to stigmatize sympathy with sufferings that they themselves have been unwilling or unable to realize. The moment they do realize, they become just as “sentimental,” just as moved by pity and anger—for that is what sentimental means—as those at whom they sneer.

Ah! but—says the public—even if there be suffering for animals, the pleasure that their freaks or their fur or their feathers give us is greater than this suffering; we are entitled to weigh the one against the other. Yet few of that same public would dream of saying this if with their own eyes they saw the tortures; for then the pleasure they talk of would have vanished in the memory of those quivering visions. Out of sheer sluggishness of imagination, out of mere laziness of mind, then, is made that rather pitiable plea—our pleasure is greater than their suffering.

Yes! Nearly all the suffering we inflict, whether on human beings or on animals, comes from our not thinking. Many people gravely distrust that practice. For all that, I venture to suggest that a little more thought will do no harm to any of us.

We pass this way but once, but once tread this world, and live in communion with these furred and feathered things, many of them beautiful, in a thousand ways so like ourselves, often friendly if we would let them be, and yet who, one and all, are so simple and helpless in the face of our force and ingenuity. Shall we, as we vanish, say: “I have lived my life as a true lord of creation, taking toll from the captivities and sufferings of every creature that had not my strength and cunning!” Or shall we pass out with the thought: “I wish I had not given needless pain to any living thing!”

Vivisection of Dogs

(Letters toThe Times, 1913.)

Whatever one’s beliefs concerning the whole question of experiments on the living body, the vivisection of dogs is a strange anomaly. Even if it be granted that the dog, by reason of its intelligence and nervous organisation, is more fitted than other animals for certain vivisectional experiments (though I believe this is disputed), there are yet basic considerations which make such treatment of the dog a scandalous betrayal. Man, no doubt, first bound or bred the dog to his service and companionship for purely utilitarian reasons; but we of to-day, by immemorial tradition and a sentiment that has become almost as inherent in us as the sentiment towards children, give him a place in our lives utterly different from that which we accord to any other animal (not even excepting cats); a place that he has won for himself throughout the ages, and that he ever increasingly deserves. He is by far the nearest thing to man on the face of the earth; the one link that we have spiritually with the animal creation; the one dumb creature into whose eyes we can look and tell pretty well for certain what emotion, even what thought is at work within; the one dumb creature which—not as a rare exception, but almost always—steadily feels the sentiments of love and trust. This special nature of the dog is our own handiwork, a thing instilled into him through thousands of years of intimacy, care, and mutual service, deliberately and ever more carefully fostered; extraordinarily precious even to those of us who profess to be without sentiment. It is one of the prime factors of our daily lives in all classes of society—this mute partnership with dogs; and—we are still vivisecting them!

I am told that pro-vivisectionists are fighting tooth and nail against the Bill (now in committee stage in the House of Commons) which has for object the exemption of dogs from all vivisectional and inoculative experiments. If it indeed be so, I ask them: “Would you, any one of you, give your own dog up to the vivisector’s knife, or respect a man who gave or sold you his dog for your experiments?” I take it they would reply: “We would not give our own dogs. We should think poorly of the man who sold or gave us his dog. The dogs we use are homeless, masterless, dogs.” And in turn I would answer: “There are no dogs born in this country without home or master. The dogs you use are those who have already fallen on cruelty or misfortune, whom as kindly men you pity or should pity; these are the dogs, the lost dogs that you take for your experiments, to make their ends more wretched than their lives have been!”

If this be sentiment, it is not mere cultured sentiment, but based on a very real and simple sense of what is decent. Miners, farmers, shepherds, little shopmen, gamekeepers, and humble men of all sorts, who own dogs, have precisely the same feeling—that the dog is essentially the friend of man, deserving loyal treatment. We all have this feeling; yet, when for our alleged benefit we want to violate it, we can still say: “Oh! it does not matter; this dog is already down!” In a word, what we would not do with our own dogs we have no right to do with dogs that have not had the luck to be ours. It is not so much a question of love of dogs as of good faith in men.

I do not wish to enter here into the general question of vivisection, but I do plead that, whether we believe in vivisection or not, we are bound, in common honour, to make a clean and whole-hearted exception of the one creature whom we have trained to really trust and love us. By not doing so we injure the human spirit.

I answer the rejoinders to my plea for the exemption of dogs from vivisection in no spirit of hostility to science, with all respect for investigators who are inspired by the desire to lessen the sum of suffering in the world, and not at all assuming that those who support the vivisection of dogs must needs be without fondness for their companionship.

I suggest that there is a distinction between being “vivisected” (and in that word I include inoculations) to save your own life or lessen your own suffering and being vivisected by your neighbours to save their lives or lessen their sufferings. The distinction indeed might almost be called profound. And if my contention that the dog has earned for himself a consideration from man, I do not say equal, but analogous, to that which man has for his own species, be admitted, it would follow that if we approve of cutting up and inoculating the dog, not for his individual benefit, but for our benefit and for that of his fellow-dogs, we must also approve of cutting up and inoculating our children and ourselves, not for our individual benefit, but for the benefit of the race, having regard to the immeasurably more direct results which science would secure from vivisections and inoculations on the human body. It is possible, indeed, that some vivisectors are prepared, in the interests of the scientific treatment of disease, to say: “I am so entirely, so definitely, convinced of the benefits to the human race of these experiments that I am ready to give not only my dog but my child, my wife, myself if necessary, for the good of mankind.” But I personally—and I venture to think there may be others of the same opinion—am not prepared to go so far. And I plead simply that if we are not ready to make martyrs of our children and heroes of ourselves, the time has come when we are no longer entitled to make martyrs of dogs. The issue raised, in fact, is whether or no the dog has reached a position where it becomes unethical to treat him as if he had not reached that position.

There are innumerable people in all ranks of our civilized world who would echo the words I heard last night: “If I were condemned to spend twenty-four hours alone with a single creature, I would choose to spend them with my dog.” Granting that most people would make two or three human exceptions, the saying expresses a true feeling. There is a quiet comfort in the companionship of a dog, with its ever-ready touching humility, which human companionship, save of the nearest, does not bring; and I assert that this boon, to mankind—of dog’s companionship—does raise the dog on to the peculiar plane of ethical consideration which we apply to ourselves. There is no need to adduce stories of how “Dash” or “Don” saved the gardener’s baby from setting herself on fire, or swam to the rescue of little Thomas who was drowning; we have only to watch dogs in house or street. I noted three yesterday afternoon, the only three in the street at the moment. The first, a fox-terrier, was trotting along quite by himself with an air of mastery of London that could not have been excelled by the best “man of the world” amongst us. No other sort of animal could have even begun to walk the streets of man with that quiet busy confidence. The second, a spaniel, was looking up at his mistress—it is not often that children and their mothers have the confidence in each other that those two certainly had. The third, a retriever, was towing an infirm old gentleman.

Yes, the position of the dog is unique. We have made him intelligent; and it is sinister ethics to choose him for vivisections or inoculations because of the very intelligence we have implanted. We have taught him faith and love, and I feel are ourselves bound by what we have taught him. Into other animals we have not instilled these qualities, we are therefore not bound to the same special faith with them that we owe to the dog.

My plea being simply that men cannot make friends of dogs and then treat them as if that relationship did not exist, I am not concerned to discuss the disputed question of whether or not special benefit does arise from experiments on dogs; but, in regard to suffering in such experiments, take the Home Office Returns for 1911: “Dogs and cats experimented uponwithout anæsthetics, 452. Dogs and cats allowed to recover after serious operations, 393”; and the words of the Report of the Royal Commission on Vivisection: “It is clear that even if the initial procedure may be regarded as trivial, the subsequent results of this procedure must in some cases, at any rate, be productive of great pain and much suffering.”

After all, we have not only bodies but spirits, and when our minds have once become alive to ethical doubt on a question such as this (there are 870,000 signatures to a petition for the total exemption of dogs from vivisection), when we are no longer sure that we have the right so to treat our dog comrades, there has fallen a shadow on the human conscience that will surely grow, until, by adjustment of our actions to our ethical sense, it has been remedied.

Horses in Mines

(A Letter toThe Times, 1910.)

The experience which has just befallen the 300 horses and ponies imprisoned underground during the strike riots at Clydach Vale spurs me to an appeal to all owners of collieries and mines to abandon,as far as possiblethe use of horses and ponies below ground.

The question of the treatment of pit ponies has of late attracted much attention, and is under examination by the Royal Commission on Mines. Into discussion of the truth of particular stories of cruelty I do not intend to enter. I have no first-hand knowledge, and, short of becoming a pit-pony driver, or mine inspector, no real chance of obtaining any. I wish simply to draw the attention of owners and managers of collieries and mines to certain considerations that need not in the least hurt a just belief in their own humanity or that of their employees.

Apart from the aberrations of human brutes, who flourish as well above ground as below, cruelty in these days is not deliberate, but requires for its existence three primary fostering conditions: the first, an overdriven or irritated state of nerves; the second, secrecy; the third, a helpless object.

The first of these conditions is always more or less present in mine work, not only because of the atmosphere and unnatural environment, but also because a certain amount of work has to be got through under difficulties in a certain amount of time. The second of these conditions is always present to a greater extent than almost anywhere above ground. The third of these conditions is obviously present. In mines and collieries, therefore, we have human nature, neither better nor worse underground than it is above, working continually under circumstances in which the three primary fostering conditions of cruelty are present. We, thus have aprimâ faciecase for supposing—all other things being equal—that there must be more cruelty in the treatment of animals underground than on the surface. If there were not, it would mean that miners were not only as humane as the rest of mankind, which is freely admitted, but much more humane, which is not likely. The existence of these three primary fostering conditions in perpetual combination, in fact, renders the conclusion, apart from all actual evidence, as inevitable as a chemical equation.

But far beyond all this we have the fact that herbivorous animals, accustomed to daylight and fresh air, are kept from the age of four to the age at which they are about to die in a place where no green thing of any sort can grow, where the air is strange and dark, and there is neither rain nor sunshine. And, further, we have those occasional catastrophes, such as that which so nearly did to death the unfortunate 300 horses in Clydach Vale.

One assumes as a matter of course that mine owners are as personally humane in their treatment of animals as the rest of us; that they do not lack desire to see that their ponies and horses underground are treated well; that they would recoil from the sight of neglectful treatment of four-legged creatures that came under their own eyes. I merely appeal to them to consider, apart from the breezes and contradictions of a vexed question, the plain common sense of the matter. There are, no doubt, thousands of well-fed, well-treated, well-kept ponies employed in pits; but with human nature and animal nature fixed quantities, and the conditions what they are, must there not inevitably be far more suffering, on the whole, in their lives underground than in the lives of animals employed on the surface? The heart of the matter lies in the unnatural conditions.

Small engines are used with success both here and abroad for some kinds of mine traction. For other kinds of mine traction animals may always have to be employed—though that is a hard saying, seeing what human ingenuity can accomplish. But surely a great deal more of the traction in English collieries and mines could be done by engines with safety and economy. Is it too much to beg kindly men that they should do their utmost to substitute, so far as possible, this mechanical traction for the labour of those four-legged creatures whose lives underground must, even in the best circumstances, be unnatural and sad.

It is no more desirable for human beings than for animals to have to spend their lives underground; and what men can put up with animals certainly can. But men have at all events some choice in the matter, and they do spend half the week at least on the surface.

The unnatural conditions of our own lives do not justify us in employing animals under unnatural conditions where we can avoid it. I take it we all wish to see suffering reduced to its irreducible minimum.

(A Letter toThe Times, 1913.)

The inspectors appointed to carry out the provisions of the Coal Mines (Regulation) Act in regard to pit ponies are to be six in number: one for each division in the United Kingdom, which contains 3,325 coal mines.

I understand that this provision is based on the grounds that the ordinary mine inspectors, of whom there are many, will not be thereby absolved from that part of their duties; and that the multiplication of officials is an expensive and undesirable thing.

I wish to point out that the ordinary inspectors will, almost to a man, feel that the appointment of special inspectors, in regard to a particular branch of their duties, relieves them from what is a very thankless job. It is only human nature not to want to spy on one’s own kind if one is not absolutely obliged.

Under the ordinary system of inspection, the figures for the year 1907 give only twenty-two prosecutions for cruelty to animals, underground, in the United Kingdom. Taking the boys and men employed in mines as average kindly folk, neither more nor less given to cruelty than the rest of us, this number of prosecutions would work out, relatively to opportunity, at extraordinarily below the number of prosecutions above ground. And we can only deduce from this the fact that the conditions in mines are such that acts which above ground would lead to prosecution pass unnoticed underground.

I do beg the Home Secretary to reconsider this aspect of the question—that is to say, the certainty that the appointment of special inspectors of animals will in practice bring a feeling of absolution to the ordinary inspector from the duty of reporting on animals.

For, if this is admitted, the number of six special inspectors is shown to be ludicrous. It means about two mines a day all the year round for each inspector. Those of us who have been down coal mines know how perfunctory such inspection must be.

It is certainly undesirable to multiply officials without due cause; but there really is a point of common sense and compromise which will hardly be reached even if twelve instead of six special inspectors are appointed.

The new regulations are admirably wide and directed to bettering the lives of these unfortunate little beasts; for, putting everything at the best, they remain unfortunate compared with their brethren above ground. But these regulations will want a lot of looking after, especially at first, if they are not to be a dead letter.

The great bulk of our material comfort comes out of our coal mines; surely we can spare a little more of it than this to guarantee so far as we can the welfare of the ponies.

Back to Index Next