ANIMAL WELFARE.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 138, 12 June 1926, Page 40

ANIMAL WELFARE.

(By HUIA.)

A SAVAGE SURVIVAL OF WILD WEST TIMES. THE RODEO.

The most cruel and dehumanising performance enacted in the United States at the present day is the roundup or "rodeo." It is a series of contests between dare-devil cattlemen' or "cow punchers," and terrified tormented animals. At these notorious carnivals the rough riding, reckless element from the plains will perform almost any freakish feat Jto furnish a thrill for a morbid crowd, at the expense of animal abuse and. suffering. Those who have witnessed at close range the bulldogging, know that the fear-crazed steer is made helpless by pain .inflicted by the twisting of his neck to the breaking point, together with a fiendish clutch in his nostrils, and that he is forced to the ground through sheer suffering, all of which has been pre-arranged with utmost cunning on the part, of his tormentors. A member of the American Humane Society, in .urging the suppression of these debasing exhibitions, tells of a round up in Washington. A horse had been "treated" by the buckaroos before leaving the enclosure, to make him frantic enough to thrill the crowd. He was surrounded by five men on ponies, two of whom closed in against the desieged animal until they could take, each of them, one of his ears in their mouths* and like veritable gringos they cheweif until it was necessary for them to turn and spit out the blood of their victim while he stood a trembling mass of horse flesh waiting for his release to plunge madly, anyhow, anywhere, to be - rid of his tormentors. £~ The editor of the "Morning Oregonian" vividly describes a revolting scene that he witnessed at a Western round-up. He writes:— "Out of the dust and shouting, the bawlings and plunginge, two steers lurched to their feet. Each ; dangled a useless leg, fractured in the rough drama of the day. Punchers rode toward these steers, roped them deftly, and dragged them away at a lumbering gallop—on three legs, the fourth swinging, swaying, tossing at unnatural, sickening tangents from the body. After an interval, when riders and steers were screened from view, there sounded two pistol shots. The spectators drew their own conclusions. They had been spared the actual butchery of the tortured animals, but they had not been spared the spectacle of the torture itself." The Rodeo at Wembley. In England quick dispatch was made of the rodeo. No sooner had these wild west shows, advertised at enormous expense, .begun, than the better part of the English public became enraged at the treatment of the animals. Some of' I the steers were so badly injured in the roping scenes that they had to be shot, and the twisting of necks of others in the bulldogging stunts was so evidently an act of cruelty that the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals undertook to stop the worst features connected with the performances. A visitor to Wembley says:—"Nothing impressed mc as more cruel than the saddling of the so-called wild horses, — horses previously tormented into viciousness, turned loose to bo caught, saddled, bridled and mounted inside a given time. In this part of the performance one horse screamed more than once with pain, the screams so piercing that they could have been heard at least a quarter of a mile away. What was being done \o him could not be seen from the seats, as four or five men were gathered around, but any man who knows a horse knows that nothing but the intensest suffering can draw such sounds from him." The Englishman's sense of true sportsmanship and fair play, mate in every Britisher's consciousness, rendered the ghastly concept of "sport" typified by the rodeo insufferably repugnant, and the promoters were politely but firmly informed that they were free to return to the land across the waters whence they came. A Poet's Viewpoint. Several years ago the well-known American journalist and poet, . Ella Wheeler Wilcox, wrote:— "Many times I am asked why the suffering of animals seems to call forth more sympathy from mc than the suffering of human t .ngs; why I give more time and effort in this direction of charitable work than toward any other. "My answer is, because I believe this " work includes all the educational lines of reform which are needed to make a perfect circle of peace and good-will about the earth. "A majority of the people who hear about the societies for prevention of cruelty to animals imagine the work of those societies consists in arresting and punishing cruel drivers, and in furnishing homes for vagrant animals. But these are only side issues of the main work. The real work is the education of the growing generation in kindness to all weaker and lesser creatures of earth. "Thoughts are things. Thought is energy —thought is creative power. That is why it is important to direct the minds of human bejngs to good, kind helpful thoughts.".