Part 5

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!”

V

VIVISECTION OF DOGS (Letters to _The Times_, 1913.)

(1)

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.

(2)

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 upon _without 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.

VI

HORSES IN MINES

(1)

(A Letter to _The 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 possible_ the 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 a _primâ facie_ case 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.

(2)

(A Letter to _The 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.

VII

THE DOCKING OF HORSES’ TAILS (Foreword to a Pamphlet, 1913.)

In the year A.D. 785 the Council of Celchyth—it seems—thus addressed our ancestors:

“From the influence of a vile and unbecoming custom you deform and mutilate your horses. . . . You cut off their tails; and when you enjoy them uninjured and perfect, you choose rather to maim and blemish them, so as to make them odious and disgustful objects to all who see them. . . . This you are admonished to renounce.”

Thus the Council of Celchyth in A.D. 785. The Council of Westminster in A.D. 1913 has not yet been moved to admonish us, in the only way it can—by law—to renounce this “vile and unbecoming custom” of docking the tails of horses.

“Vile and unbecoming!” If it be not, still, vile to mutilate a defenceless beast (sometimes at cost of acute suffering) for the sake of a fashion, and of a market value dictated by that fashion; if it be not, still, vile to deprive a very sensitive animal of its natural protection against stinging insects, and against the exposure of what ought to be protected—by what word shall we describe this practice? And if it be not, still, unbecoming to destroy the untouched sweep and grace of one of the most beautiful of creatures, and turn what is natural and decent into the indecently grotesque—what significance has all our talk of beauty, and all our so-called taste? The idea that a natural tail causes carriage accidents is an exploded myth. The plea that a docked tail saves trouble in cleaning is readily met, if need be, by shortening the hair of the tail as far as the end of the “dock” or bone of the tail, without touching the bone itself. The tail will then be as short as even a stable hand can reasonably desire, the horse not mutilated, and the hair ready to grow again.

In certain exceptional circumstances it may be necessary to dock a horse. But, to make a fashion of it. . . .!

Ye gods! What a sense of beauty and of decency we must have, to approve the miserable stumps left on our horses by this “disgustful” practice! If we must indulge in mutilation for the sake of “beauty” let us perform on ourselves; tattoo our faces, perforate our lips, flatten our craniums, with other devices suitable to savages. But let us leave the horse alone, who in his unmutilated state is far less in need of “decoration” than we.

There are some customs that seem to spell despair. How far, indeed, are we removed from savages, when we can blindly follow a custom so thoughtless and tormenting, so stupid and ugly?

VIII

AIGRETTES (A note in _Pearson’s Magazine_, 1913.)

Am I in favour of legislation prohibiting the importation of plumage into Great Britain?

I cannot conceive of any one, man or woman, with imagination, and knowledge of the facts, who would not be in favour of such legislation. That English women—English _ladies_—after years of revelation concerning this dismal matter, should continue to support by their demands the killing of myriads of beautiful birds _at breeding season_ is the most discouraging instance I know of the blindness of the human creature whose vanity is threatened.

American law has banned the aigrette; why does English law lag behind?

Not one of our legislators would torture a bird, yet because a few thousand miles separate them from the scenes of this butchery, they seem either unable to imagine what it means or to find time to put a stop to it. I commend to one and all the Report of the House of Lords Committee who examined the whole question some years ago, and said:

“The evidence has been such as to show conclusively, in the opinion of the Committee, that not only are birds of many species slaughtered recklessly, but also that the methods employed for slaughter are such as in many cases, and especially in that of egrets, to involve the destruction of the young birds and eggs.

“Birds are, as a rule, in their finest plumage at the time of nesting, and have been shown to be especially the prey of hunters at that season.”

Such Committees should not be appointed if their conclusions are not to be paid attention to.

CONCERNING LAWS

I

ON PROCEDURE IN PARLIAMENT (A Letter to _The Times_, March, 1914.)

I am moved to speak out what, I am sure, many are feeling. We are a so-called civilized country; we have a so-called Christian religion; we profess humanity. We have an elected Parliament, to each member of which we pay £400 a year; so that we have at least some right to say: “Please do our business, and that quickly!”

And yet we sit and suffer such barbarities and mean cruelties to go on amongst us as must dry the heart of God. I cite at random a few only of the abhorrent things done daily, daily left undone—done and left undone, without a shadow of a doubt, against the conscience and general will of the community:—

(1) Sweating of women workers.