WHAT IS CRUELTY?

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 121, 24 May 1935, Page 6

WHAT IS CRUELTY?

The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is very much concerned for the feelings of the little bully trout which are used by anglers for bait. It is held by some that it' is cruel to put them on the hook alive, as is the usual practice. There is comedy in the announcement that the S.P.C.A. is to obtain an opinion on the subject from —of all bodies —an acclimatisation society. The question is, where does cruelty to animals begin and end? Who can give an authoritative reply? Is there a size limit, or should the smallest creature in creation come within the purview of the S.P.C.A.? The Hindu religion forbids the taking of any kind of life. Where will the S.P.C.A.'s sympathies begin and end? What of the crayfish which are brought to market all alive-oh suffering treatment which must arouse pained indignation in their breasts? What of the humble huhu and the cricket which I have found the best bait for trout (the quaint laws of trout-catching to the contrary notwithstanding) 1' Have they no feelings when we impale them on the hook without a whiff of chloroform to shorten their sufferings? What of the swordfish, desperately fighting for liberty with a huge hook, or two or three hooks, tearing at his throat and jaws? The more he leaps in agony, breaching the foam (why do the anglers all confuse it with broaching, as if it were naughty sailors broaching cargo?), the more the man with rod and line is delighted. Swordie is giving a grand display, in his sprightly light-heartedness. Will the S.P.C.A. concern itself with the prevention of cruelty to swordfish? And there is the shark, which we used to torture by sprit sailyarding it with a sharp piece of wood driven through its snout? That was to prevent it using its jaws. Do sharks come within the benevolent sphere of the society's influence, or have sharks no feelings? And there is opossum trapping. The law frowns on a man who shoots a 'possum in his garden or up his fruit trees. A man was actually fined the other day for shooting one which annoyed the family by scrambling about the roof of his house. Is not shooting more merciful than catching the creature in a trap and keeping it there in agony for many hours or perhaps days? Will the S.P.C.A. protest, and will it suggest a better means of capturing the pest of the forest ? And, reverting to anglers, should they not be cursed with many loud cursings by the society because their chief joy is "playing" the trout for a thrilling half-hour? Tickling trout is a pleasing operation to both tickler and ticklee, and the boy who knows his way about the streams finds it easier than catching them with the rod. The Maori, to his surprise—so he says—frequently finds a fine big trout in his eel-basket set in the creek. Yet both ways are against the law, which specifics that trout must not bo taken without the hook. Will the S.P.C.A. launch a campaign in favour of tickling and ecl-baskcting, in the cause of painless fishing? —I\AUGIWAI.