THE FIGHT AGAINST CRUELTY.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 12, 15 January 1929, Page 6

THE FIGHT AGAINST CRUELTY.

"In future, hounds will be withdrawn when pursued stags take to the sea."

Such is the concession, a notable one when it is remembered how strong a hold hunting has in England, and how closely it is bound up with all traditions and associations —that has been made by the Devon and Somerset Hunt, the chief stag-hunting pack in Great Britain. Two years ago things were not so, and the unfortunate quarry, whether stag or hind, was relentlessly chased even when in the water, dragged out, and killed. It says much for the power of the Press, and of public opinion, that, mainly due to the action of a prominent English daiiy in making the facts public, the resulting indignant outcry has brought this result about.

Another gain, fully as important, made during the last twelve months, is the acknowledged universal need of a humane rabbit trap in place of the barbarous steel one now in use, and the offering of a £300 prize by the R.S.P.C.A. for a trap that shall fulfil the stated requirements. Hardly a mail reaches New Zealand without bringing some item of news, showing that animal lovers throughout the world are on the watch to help in whatever way they can. Now it is a suggestion that offenders on the score of cruelty to dumb creatures shall have corporal punishment meted out to them; now the story of a heroic rescue of dog or cat from cliffs "or disused quarries, at the risk of the deliverer's life, he himself being in many eases only a boy. Nearer home, too, news comes from Sydney of a bequest of £70,000 to be spent in the" erection of water troughs for horses, and otherwise to relieve the sufferings of horses throughout the world.

With the mention of water troughs, it is to be wished that they could be erected here, as elsewhere, with an overflow into a lower receptacle, for the watering of smaller dogs, which" cannot, even by standing on their hind legs, reach the trough above. It is a pity, too, that it is not illegal here, as in England, to carry poultry head downwards by the legs. Anyone who has noticed the desperate efforts by the helpless creatures, when carried so, to turn their heads upwards, cannot but realise the suffering caused to the birds.

The lesson of kindness to dumb creatures would be far easier to teach in New Zealand, and to learn, but for the lamentable short-sight-edness of those who introduced into this and other countries creatures never intended by Nature to live there. It is a far harder matter for Young New Zealand to learn to show kindness to dumb creatures than for Young England, simply because eo much that is adverse to such teaching is to be seen around him. There is so much ruthless destruction of animal life in trapping and poisoning of rabbits and birds, and wholesale shooting of deer, that it must in truth be a difficult matter for the boy mind to reconcile what is taught with what is to be seen away from school. Is it strange if he should come to believe vaguely that, while it is his duty to be kind to his dog, his pet rabbit or canary, it does not matter at all about the way in which wild birds, rabbits, or even rats are treated?

All cruelty is the inflicting of unnecessary suffering; hence every creature, whether killed for the use of man, or because, owing to his own short-sightedness, its numbers have increased beyond control, has the right to be destroyed as speedily and humanely as possible. Man has made the blunder, but, as always, the innocent animals have to pay the price. —P. B. FORESTER.