OUR ANIMALS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19780, 29 October 1927, Page 1 (Supplement)

OUR ANIMALS.

DO WE PLAY FAIR?

BY K. M. KNIGHT.

We were sitting round the guns in Albert Park, looking down on to green lawns and trees, and across the town to the harbour.

"This 'Animal Welfare Week ' gets me you know," John said. "All this week I have been reminded of the animals' view point with regard to our system of living, and I feel out of step with myself. I have seen things that are not good to see, and thought of things not good to think." "You have? I hope everyone has done the same."

"I tell you it gets me," he went on. "I think I have realised, consciously, for the first time, the inadequacy of a culturo that boasts of schools and churches, theatres and concert chambers, and, in the same street, has little stray cats, starving You know, men and women will pass little furry, kittens when they are on their way home from church, and it will never occur to them that any spiritual grace they may have attained is false unless the sight of those little hungry animals goes to their hearts."

John turned and looked at me. Childlike, clear eyes he had, mirroring his simple, big soul. "Of course I'm a crank," ho said with whimsical grace, "I can't help it. But I can't sleep unless I know that my dog's bed is as comfortable as my own. And when I think of the cats —particularly the cats—in the world who are homeless, I feel that I can't enjoy life at all. Cats were made to bo loved. You speak to the dirtiest, scabbiest, filthiest stray in town, una see if it won't rub round your legs and purr with its whole heart and soul Cats are appreciative of the smallest scrap of love. All they ask is to be fed and loved, and they'll make a god of any man. Yet look how wo treat them 1 There are possibly thousands of cats in the city who have never known what it is to curl up in front of a fire and purr themselves to sleep. And does it worry us?" Not Justice.

John was quiet for a time, while I watched the ferries crossing a little strip of sea. Then he said slowly: "It hurts me when I think of these things. It is the one part of lifo I cannot reconcile with Divine justice. If there is a God, and through suffering He purifies and strengthens the souls of His children, 1 can see light through the fact that we have to suffer, and so come to reason rightly But tho souls of animals are pure. They need no pain to purge them of unworthiness. There is no hypocrisy, no meanness, in the heart of a cat, or a dog, or a horse. They are the straightest, cleanest things on the earth. And yet they suffer the most. . . I can't make it come right." "Perhaps," I suggested, "animals were made for a sort of test for men. When they are kind they are civilised. Something of that soft." "That," John said sadly, "is the kind of answer that only man could make. It was born of copceit. Everything, man says, was made for me, that I may turn it to profit Do you really believe that. I was startled by his directness. Did 1 believe that everything was made for man to be used by him to swell a banking account ?—that' horses, toiling before heavy loads from morning till night, were for that purpose—and that alonecreated ? As if he sensed my thoughts, John said, "I often wonder when man will be asked to repay his debt to horses. The administering of oats and an occasional bran mash is not enough. There is a debt of gratitude to pay for the long, unselfish vears of service, and atonement to be made. What would yon do with a man who used the best years of a horse's life and then sold it for a few shillings to a bottle-gatherer ? What would you do with one who so foully betrayed love and trust ?"

I shook my head. Bodies, But Souls Too

"No,"' said John, "I don t know, either. But this is done, every day. Horses are used and sold into slavery when they are too old to be smart and fast. After a life of devotion they are sold to be thrashed along steep roads that have become too hard for their old logs, and soon they die, broken-down bundles of sores anci starved misery. I tell you, it s on our heads, and it's a debt that has to be paid some day. There is no getting out of things like that." He waited for me to speak, but I had nothing to sav. What could one say ? John's voice was unsteady when he spoke again. , . , "I tell you," ho said, "that this is the sort of thing that worries me more than anything. It hurts me right through when I think of it, and this ' Welfaro Week brings it to my mind. I can see the beseeching, pleading eyes of all the horses whose great trust has been betrayed, and it is not good to see." Then he turned to me with a whimsical smile on his face. 'Do you know," he asked, that men actually debate as to whether or not animals have souls' To me, whether men have «ouls is a far more debatable question Have you ever known a more as founding piece of egoism ' A snivelling little 'bookie' out at Ellerslie, carrying on his illegal plunder, hns" a soul; so have the 'big bugs' behind the legalised immorality of the 'tote.'- But the refined, cultured, sensitive animals running for the soulful ones' amusement are without soul. You smile, but it is not funny. Tt is an illogical piece of reasoning that has its fruits in—vivisection. There is nothing amusing about vivisection." The Betrayed Ones. "'I once know a crank who was crankier than I am," John said, smiling. "And he had worked it out that for each animal that was murdered out at Westfield a certain percentage of sick men entered the hospital. He said that the pendulum swung us far as the abattoirs in one cluection, and back to the hospitals and insane asylums in the other direction. he right ? I don't know. As far as the belief that men do not need meat for food ho was right, foi the healthiest men live without it. and further than that I can t sav but the fact remains that there again is "suffering that is bound to cost us something. Have you ever looked into the eves of animals being driven to the slaughter-vards ?—seen the look of rereproach "and pain and sorrow in the depths of their great eyes' If vou have, you won't forget it. I tell you that there is nc difference between the eyes of a human and those of an animal, except 'hat 11 an animal's eyes there is no de ceit; and if vou look into those of the poor doomed things going away from their beloved fields to be butchered vou won t enjoy steak for quite a while You won't be' able to get out of your mind the haunting pain of the big brown eyes of betrayed souls. "You can take it from me," John said steadily, "that we are not playing fair. Horses, cows, sheep, dogs, cats, all love and trust man, and he is not worthy He does net realise that he is just one cog in p great wheel, and that from the heart of everything capable of love and develop menl shines the same soul 1 would like to make men see that, and that they should love more. But once upon a time there was One who tried, and failed, so j it must bo a big task Perhaps I should fail too. . . "