mes passed for the
ill-treatment of a woman and for the ill-treatment of a cat; they ask
whether the real sufferings caused by many things that are in England
punished by law or reprobated by opinion are greater than those caused
by sports which are constantly practised without reproach; and they are
apt to find much that is exaggerated or even fantastic in the great
popularity and elaboration of some animal charities.[10] At the same
time in our own country the more recognised field sports greatly trouble
many benevolent natures. I will here only say that while the positive
benefits they produce are great and manifest, those who condemn them
constantly forget what would be the fate of the animals that are
slaughtered if such sports did not exist, and how little the balance of
suffering is increased or altered by the destruction of beings which
themselves live by destroying. As a poet says--

The fish exult whene'er the seagull dies,
The salmon's death preserves a thousand flies.

On most of these questions the effect on human character is a more
important consideration than the effect on animal happiness. The best
thing that legislation can do for wild animals is to extend as far as
possible to harmless classes a close time, securing them immunity while
they are producing and supporting their young. This is the truest
kindness, and on quite other grounds it is peculiarly needed, as the
improvement of firearms and the increase of population have completely
altered, as far as man is concerned, the old balance between production
and destruction, and threaten, if unchecked, to lead to an almost
complete extirpation of great classes of the animal world. It is
melancholy to observe how often sensitive women who object to field
sports and who denounce all experiments on living animals will be found
supporting with perfect callousness fashions that are leading to the
wholesale destruction of some of the most beautiful species of birds,
and are in some cases dependent upon acts of very aggravated cruelty.

FOOTNOTES:

[8] Seneca, _De Vita Beata_.

[9] Burke's _Correspondence_, i. 376, 377.

[10] As I am writing these pages I find the following paragraph in a
newspaper which may illustrate my meaning:--'DOGS' NURSING. A case was
heard at the Brompton County Court on Friday in which some suggestive
evidence was given of the medical treatment of dogs. The proprietor of a
dogs' infirmary at Tattersall's Corner