15th century. I will not say that all our English horses could be managed in the same way, but it is a pleasing story nevertheless :

"When I travelled through Pontus, part of Bythinia and Cappadocia, I observed with much interest the manner in which the peasants treated the foals from a very tender age, and how kindly they behaved to them, rearing them in their own houses, and admitting them to their very tables; you would have thought that they could not treat their children with more care and fondness. Round the neck of each they put a necklace, which they believe will protect him from every kind of fascination; of this all the peasants are very fearful, and therefore never neglect to protect their favourite horses from it by all the charms with which they are acquainted. The lads who have the charge of them never beat or strike them; kind words and stroaking are alone employed in training them. Hence they are much attached to man, and you very seldom meet with a vicious horse. How very opposite to this treatment is the European mode!—according to that, nothing can be done but by loud angry words and severe blows; hence it arises, that, when the groom enters the stables, the horses quake for fear, and both hate and dread their attendants."

The Turkish humanity to animals continues, with all its former peculiarities, to the present day. Here, however, let me be understood. I have nothing to do with their religious belief or superstitious practices. 1 am speaking of their humanity, and I hope I shall have good feeling enough to observe and to applaud that which is good in every religion and every man. In the last revolt of the Greeks, and while they were besieging Athens, the Turkish garrison, finding their animals beginning to suffer from thirst, lowered a considerable number of asses from their walls, and delivered them up to the enemy, choosing rather that they should live in the possession of the enemy than perish miserably with themselves.

When the Greeks obtained possession of the town, they commenced a sad persecution of the storks, driving them from the chimney tops and ruined columns, where they had enjoyed, under Mahometan protection, so many centuries of hereditary security. The sight of this barbarity probably grieved the Turks as much as the destruction of their houses or the violation of their mosques.

In Syria, and in Northern Africa, the Arabian horse is the companion, the friend, the beloved of the wanderer of the desert. Next to his wife and children, his quadruped companion stands highest in his affections.

It cannot be denied that, in many of these countries, the love of animals is carried to a considerable excess; still, however, it is the excess of a good and a kind principle: but as soon as we begin to tread Christian ground, I will not say that every feeling of humanity is banished, but there is an inconsiderate and, often, cruel and abominable system of conduct pursued towards the inferior animals which consists neither with our superior science or religion.

27

ON THE DUTY OF

HUMANITY TO ANIMALS.

IT is only a delegated right which we possess over the inferior creation. It was entrusted to us by Him who made us all; whose grand object in the creation of the world was the production of the greatest good; who, notwithstanding this delegation, has never withdrawn his watchful care, and whose tender mercies are over all the works of his hands; who, in the establishment of the Jewish religion, condescended again and again to express his regard, not merely for man, but for the brute, and to enact certain laws which had especial reference to the protection and welfare of the inferior animals-who in the Old Testament made the divine favour to depend in a most important degree on the practice of humanity-and who, in due time, gave to the world that second and better revelation in which we are exhorted to "be merciful as our Father also is merciful," for then, and then alone, we shall obtain mercy. With regard to the extent of this delegated power, it includes the use of the inferior creatures as food, but implies no thoughtless waste of life, no unnecessary pain in the destruction of the animal*.

* When the right of destroying the inferior animals as food was given to Noah and his family, there was a restriction which the Jews have sacredly observed unto the present day: "The flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat." Two interpretations have been given to this, and both of them founded on humanity. The first is the barbarous way of slaughtering the victims, when the spirits of the dead were evoked by means of the blood.-See Hor. Sat., lib. viii, 27. The other and more probable interpretation is, that it was in anticipation of the horrible practices which afterwards prevailed in some parts of the East, and, according to Bruce and other travellers, still continue, of cutting away and devouring parts of the animal while it was yet alive.

There is a corresponding passage (Lev. xvii, 13) commanding that, if

To be born and to die is the lot of every created being. The benevolent purposes of the Creator are better answered, and a greater sum of happiness is enjoyed by a succession of beings passing through the different stages of existence, than, at least in this lower and probationary world, could be obtained by the prolonged life of any of them. In fact, we can hardly conceive of indefinitely prolonged life; for the wheels of every machine will wear away, and the springs will lose their elastic force, and every movement has a tendency gradually to cease. Each being has a certain duration of life allowed him, and then he passes away.

He sometimes dies of disease. This is the usual lot of the human being; but he has relatives and friends to soothe his sorrows or minister to his necessities, and he has time to prepare himself for his last account.

In a few cases the biped or quadruped dies of pure old age, the machine being absolutely worn out. This is scarcely desirable even for the human being; for the last years of such an individual are those of trouble and sorrow. To the inferior animals either of these kinds of death would be a curse. The concluding periods of life would be those of wretchedness or of famine. To them another mode of departure is allotted, a sudden and a violent one.

Throughout the whole of the creation one class of animals preys upon another. The devoted ones are aware, to a certain extent, of their danger, and use a variety of precautions to ward it off: but this seems very little to interfere with their enjoyment; there is no anxiety or dread, and their life is evidently one of happiness. When they have been the cause of existence to others of the same species, and who will fill their places, and do their duties, their fate suddenly overtakes them, and they die. That which is literally true of the pet is essentially so of the greater part of these creatures.

any beast or fowl is hunted or caught, the blood thereof shall be immediately poured out. When that is done, there must be a speedy termination of the sufferings of the animal.

The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day,
Had he thy reason, would he skip and play?
Pleas'd to the last, he crops the flow'ry food,

And licks the hand just rais'd to shed his blood.
Oh! blindness to the future, kindly given,

That each might fill the circle marked by Heaven.

Man is only one of the agents in this system of destruction, and, while he destroys not wantonly, nor renders the mode of death unnecessarily painful, he is lawfully exercising his power in converting the inferior animals to his use*.

The greater part of his raiment is derived from the animal creation, and with the same provisoes he has a right to obtain it thence; and, finally, as his intellectual faculties will enable him best to calculate on the results of certain modes of proceeding, and the benefits that may ensue or the evils that may be avoided, he has a right to tax the strength and speed of the animals around him. Beyond this there is no law of nature or religion which gives him license to proceed. This tenure cannot be better defined than in the oft-quoted language of Cowper:

The creeping vermin, loathsome to the sight,
And charg'd perhaps with venom, that intrudes,
A visitor unwelcome, into scenes

Sacred to neatness and repose, may die.

Not so when, held within their proper bounds,
And guiltless of offence, they range the air,
Or take their pastime in the spacious field;
They there are privileged.

The sum is this: If man's convenience,

Health, or safety, interfere, his rights and claims

Are paramount, and must extinguish theirs.

* If the multiplication of animals were unchecked, the consequences would be most fearful. A pair of redbreasts would, in seven years, have increased to more than three millions. "If rats were suffered to multiply without the restraint of powerful, positive, natural checks, not only would fertile plains and rich cities be undermined and destroyed, but the whole surface of the earth, in a very few years, would be left a barren and hideous waste, covered with myriads of famished animals, against which man himself would contend in vain."

Fothergill's Philosophy of Nat. Hist., pp. 139.

Else they are all-the meanest things that are-
As free to live, and to enjoy that life,

As God was free to form them at the first,

Who in his sov'reign wisdom made them all.

This delegated power naturally, necessarily, supposes an account to be rendered of the manner in which it has been exercised. In the fulness of his pride, and the carelessness and the cruelty of his heart, man may grossly violate the laws of nature, and unnecessarily shorten or embitter the lives of his slaves; but that Being who created the inferior animals, who has condescended to prescribe rules for our conduct towards them, and who has placed their happiness and their lives so much at our disposal, will hereafter assuredly vindicate their rights.

They are delegated rights which are committed to us, and by Him who made all things for the promotion of the greatest possible happiness that his creatures could enjoy. There are precepts enough, as we have already seen, which inculcate humanity in every part of the sacred volume; but can we find one admission that the brutes are mere machines, and to be used as our capricious fancies may dictate? A great many of these animals have the same feelings of pain with ourselves; and all of them have that degree of sensibility which is best adapted to the situation in which they are found. By what ordinance are they placed beyond the pale of justice? They are designed, to a very considerable extent, for our use and pleasure; but where is the privilege of sacrificing them when and as we please, and with every circumstance of inhumanity?

That we possessed this right was, a few years ago, the almost universal belief; such is still the opinion of many. These persons betray a woful state of ignorance on one of the most important subjects that can engage the attention of man. We ask again, will any of those who act as ill-humour or passion prompt tell us what code of law, human or divine, permits them to use their dumb slaves with brutality? Will they tell us on what principle there should exist an acknowledged right in favour of man, and none with regard to the inferior