"LITTLE BROTHER"

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 81, 3 October 1938, Page 10

"LITTLE BROTHER"

MAN AND ANIMALS

GROWTH OF KINDNESS

NOTABLE FORCES

(Written for the "Evening Post" by A.M.) The paradox of the increasing concern of man for the welfare of his brother in peace and his multiplication of engines to destroy him in war, has become a commonplace. By the side of this increasing concern has developed a deeper love and understanding of animals, and a stronger and wider resolve to prevent them being ill-used. In our own commonwealth —and of course the movement is not confined to British countries— we see this in the campaign against vivisection, in the activities of the SJP.G.A., in the growing feeling against blood-sports, and numerous steps taken to preserve wild life and succour tame. It is true that old lusts die hard. It is said that cock-fight-ing is still practised in England. There is still a great body of cruelty in this country as in others, most of it the result of want of thought more than want of heart. But the movement marches, and it is one sign of its march that, with people elsewhere, ,we shall be celebrating this week what is called Animal Week, a period dedicated to the care of animals. With this at hand it is worth considering some >of the forces, especially the literary forces, that have awakened and strengthened the conscience of man. THE PATRON SAINT. The whole movement may be described as partly religious and partly humanitarian. The terms, of course, are not exclusive, but there are many humane men and women who are not religious in the institutional sense of the word. The British concern for animals in the nineteenth century was largely the result of the evangelical movement that began with Wesley, whose piety and genius did so much to produce what was almost a revolution in manners and morals as well as religious sincerity. Cruelty and its opposite, kindness or corrfpjassion, is one of the tests of the quality of religious feeling, as of civilisation itself. But an example in this field was set by a great Christian centuries before Wesley. St. Francis of Assisi lived seven hundred years ago. He is the patron saint of animals, and his memory and example will be invoked widely during the coming week, regardless of creed. St. Francis was a saint first and a writer afterwards, but he owes his. fame partly to his splendid gift «f words. He was friend not only of beasts and birds, but of the elements, and he has left us expressions of that friendship in words compounded of love and fire and an extraordinary naivete that surprises us even more than bursts of eloquence. In his famous "Canticle of the Sun" he talks of his brotherhood with the sun and moon, with wind, water, and fire. The sun is "Mr. Sun," of which Chesterton says, "something of the same hazy, but healthy awe makes . the story of Brer Fox and Brer Rabbit refer respectfully to Mr. Man." When, threatened with blindness he submitted (in pre-anaesthetic days, remember) _■ to cauterisation with a red-hot instrument, he made one of those divinely humorous remarks that are as illuminating as the sun itself. "Brother Fire, God made you beautiful and strong and useful; I pray you be courteous with me." A man who felt as he did- about the elements naturally loved animals and exercised power over them. Indeed, to understand his attitude to living creatures, it is necessary to consider this primal intimacy of his mind. "He was a man overflowing with sympathy for man and beast—for God's creatures wherever and howsoever he encountered them," says another biographer. "Not only was every man his brother, but every animal—the sh.eep in the fields, the birds in the branches, the brother-ass on which he rode, the sister-bees that took refuge m his kind protection. He was a friend of everything that suffered or rejoiced; no emotion went beyond his sympathy; his heart rose to the gladness of nature, and melted over the distresses of the smallest and ??t St creature on the face of the earth. _ Here is one example of his love, his sermon to birdsA* 'ft and riVefS *nd f^nt"n S bfor your drinK The mountains and valleys are your SfSi^iM 0"' aml in the 'all-trees you'ran safely build your nests. So sine to Him and praise His goodness and His love. THE POET'S INFLUENCE. The influence.of St. Francis has come down the centuries, and no limit can be, set to its working. His love is in Coleridge's He prayeth best, who loveth beat All things both great and small. For the dear God tvho loveth us. He made and loveth all. •nd in Blake's .■ . A Robin Redbreast in a cage Puts all heaven in a rage. These are the spear-points of reform. Long after Blake wrote, the abomin•able practice continued'in England of blinding birds to make them sing, and we still cage far more birds than we should (if indeed we should cage any), but Blake's lines, passed from generation to generation, have given freedom or life to many. Poets of today continue the good work. There is, for example, Ralph Hodgson's imaginary scene of parson and people kneeling and "with angry prayers" praying Tor tamed and shabby tigers And dancing dogs and bears. And wretched blind pit ponies And little hunted hares. There are other writers whose work is like a broad river. Scott, for example; by not reading him the present generation misses a lot in the i broadening and deepening of its sympathies with animals as well as men. Scott was a great lover of animals, especially dogs. He always had dogs about him, and the gallery of dogs in his poems and novels is magnificent. Indeed, it was his skill in depicting dogs that gave one astute reader a clue to the identity of the author of "Waverley." "I have sometimes thought of the final cause of dogs having such short lives," he wrote to Miss Edgeworth, "and I am quite satisfied it is ! in compassion to the human race; for, if we suffer so in losing a dog after an acquaintance of ten or twelve years, what would it be if they were to live double that time?" When one of his dogs died, the family stood round the grave in tears, and Scott excused himself from dining out that evening on account of the death of a dear old friend. What would he have thought of our New Zealand custom, happily extinct, I believe, of tethering "boundary dogs" away out on the confines of runs and leaving them there? A SAVIOUR OF BIRDS. ' The number of modern books bearIng on the subject must be very large. I Should like to mention two. My copy ti Anna Sewell's "Black Beauty" is a (Wither sumptuous edition of 1915, with

illustrations by Lucy Kemp-Welch. But this classic of a horse's life was published at least fifty years ago and may be a good deal older. Though the horse has been superseded to such a large extent by the motor, I believe "Black Beauty" still sells, and may it continue to do so. Written to show by good and bad example Vow a horse should be treated, the book is calculated to educate in knowledge of and kindness towards animals those who have nothing to do with horses. In the pre-motor days, I should say, the S.P.C.A. was most concerned with the sore backs of horses and their general ill-treatment. Such cruelty made many people indignant and even ill. Today the r6ads kill their hundreds and thousands, and I cannot help thinking that if people were proportionately upset there would be a considerable reduction in this toll. The other book is "The Story of San Michele," which bids fair to be a classic of another kind. , Dr. Axel Munthe's achievement in saving the birds on Capri is one of the most clean-cut and remarkable in the his-' tory of animal amelioration. He set himself, a foreigner, and one of alien faith, against old custom and strongly rooted vested interests. It was the practice to catch birds, and after dragging them about the village, liberate them in the chu\ph as symbols of the Holy Dove. They fluttered about the church, broke their wings against the windows, and fell down to die on the floor. Dr. Munthe climbed to the roof and broke 'some of the window panes to give the liftrds a chance to escape. Much larger was the business of snaring birds for food. Thousands would come in the spring mornings to rest on their journey across the Mediterranean; a couple of hours later they were caught in nets stretched all over the island; in the evening they were packed without food or water in boxes and sent to Marseilles to be eaten in the smart restaurants of Paris. They were lured to the nest by decoy birds deliberately blinded. Dr. Munthe fought this traffic against tremendous j odds and won. Mussolini supported' his cause. The place is now a bird sanctuary, and thousands of birds of passage rest in safety on the slopes j every spring and autumn. The blinding of birds is forbidden by law. It is significant that in Dr. Munthe's ac- j count of his dream of judgment after death, it is St. Francis who stands by him. I