PERFORMING CREATURES

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LVI, 1 August 1924, Page 2

PERFORMING CREATURES

ANIMAL STORIES IX THE HOUSE OF LORDS Is it crucify to animals to exhibit goldfish in a bowl? Or to produce rabbits from a lint and send a dog into the water for a. stick? These and other questions (the Daily Chronicle reports) ■were asked in an amusing speech by T,ord Raglan in the TJouse of Lords during the second reading debate on Lord Danesfort’s Performing Animals Bill (regulating their exhibition and training). Lord Raglan moved the rejection of the Bill, and said it was difficult to see exactly to what classes of animals it would be applied. As it stood, it might apply to the organ grinder’s monkey, the conjurer’s rabbits, the Coaching Club, or a dog which went into the Serpentine after a stick. If a man exhibited howls of goldfish he would not only have to register himself and the charwoman who cleaned tho bowls, but each of the fish would have separately to be registered, and if one of them died the owner would have to notify it to tho authorities. —(Laughter.) Lord Knutsford (the well-known “beggar” for the London Hospital) supported the Bill, a lid said lie was “a bit of a. conjurer himself.’ ’But when he produced rabbits or goldfish out- of his coat-tail pocket it was not the rabbit or goldfish that, performed, but- he himself Lord Knutsford caused some amusement by an account of the tricks of his various dogs, which, he said, had been taught without cruelty. One of them, lie said—looking towards Lord Banbury—would not eat a cake unless it was called a “Banbury cake.” and ho knew a friend’s dog which sat up and begged when anyone said, “.Knutsford.”—(Laughter.) A limn who (rained a. dog fo commit a crime like that ought to he registered.—lLniighterA The second reading was carried by 32 to three.