HALF A MILLION FOR THE LOWER ANIMALS

New Zealand Times, Volume LIII, Issue 12354, 26 January 1926, Page 6

HALF A MILLION FOR THE LOWER ANIMALS

Tom Hood wrote pathetically about “the rarity of Christian charity under the sun.’ What would he have said had he been on the planet to-day to read of the bequest of the lady who has dehumanised charity by leaving half a million sterling for the benefit of the brute creation. .The testator stipulates for the foundation of a benevolent society to be known as the Beaumont Society, that being her maiden name. There are various details'of provision of no particular interest in comparison with the main object which is .to secure for all animals, birds, and other creatures not human “immunity from molestation and destruction by man.” In furthering this object, the society can establish animal hospitals, in which vivisection—a practice usually employed for the benefit of nlan—is forbidden. Fancy the Indian tiger lying in a white hospital bed, waited < on by uniformed sisters, taking; his temperature, writing up his daily record, adjured to keep quiet, leave off snarling, take his medicine, and obey the doctor’s orders, tempted with promises of speedy restoratiqn to his favourite meat diet. And in this connection, it is not improbable that the interesting patient may have been a maneater, the terror of many villages! '' Imagine Little Red Riding Hood by the bedside of Master Wolf, soothing the creature, with the offer of a succulent quarter of lamb. These are extreme cases. But the problem of a diet presented in these hospitals to the “benevolent” directors will be a real difficulty, nevertheless. Consider the birds that follow the great shoals of herring'and mackerel, and the divers that pounce from the air below the water. Also the seals, which must have fish to give them gulping realisation of their convalescence! Absurd? After all, not more absurd than the dinners we have often read of, in which pet dogs, richly dressed and bedecked with jewellery, sat at tables heaped with dainty crockery and served by flunkeys in plush and powder. It is only carrying the dehumanising of charity a degree further, making 'permanent what was an occasional aberration. r Shocking? What else while there is dire poverty, growing up stunted to die of distress. What else but shock when half a million is diverted to the brute creation? v Sympathy with animals, admiration of their, qualities, pleasure m their beauty and cleverness, kind treatment of them—these are all admirable. But it is possible to go too far with good things. And when anyone goes so far as this sentimental testator, the question of sanity inevitably arises. It will, joking apart, be very surprising if. this dehumanising will cannot be set aside on the score of the eccentricity of the wellmeaning but gentle, irrational testator. If this bequest cannot be legally diverted to relieve crying human necessities, the world will say with the immortal Bumble that the “law is a hass.”