Page:Fragments in defence of animals, and essays on morals, soul, and future state; from the author's contributions to the Animal's Friend Society's periodical ... With a sketch of the Society, etc.pdf/105

 the emotions of a mother over the loss of her young, and expose its remains to the afflicted parent? Oh, man! "thy tender mercies are full of cruelty" towards the brute creation. Mothers, let me appeal to you, have you an infant at your breast, one whose every want depends on you, whose smiling cheeks tell of a mother's kind look, whose form and beauty surpasses all other; then, what would your feelings be to be robbed of your infant charge? The bare idea thrills every cord of your bosom with horror; and have the lower animals no affection for their offspring, think you? Oh, yes, as keen as that of a woman: then, my dear friends, let it be one of your chief cares to train up your children to respect the feelings of the brute creation, and depend on it, it will tend to make them better members of society. ''Doddington Grove, Newington Butte.''

It is remarkable that while some modes of cruelty seem to excite general horror and indignation, others of even greater atrocity are passed unnoticed or even countenanced by the very persons who condemn the former. Boiling lobsters alive is one amongst the number; and this practice having been denounced in our periodical, has even given great offence; persons having remarked that "there could be no cruelty in that, and that we were carrying matters too far." But how cruelty should not exist in boiling a sensitive being alive, either by immersing it in hot or cold water, is difficult to conceive! The practice is abominable; more criminal than many acts for which persons have been deemed felons, and suffered the extreme penalty of the law; and, even if they could not be killed, as some persons wrongly assert, in any other less horrible manner, it is no justification, there being plenty of other food.

I have on various occasions pointed out the chief causes of cruelty to animals, we now raise a step by showing from whence those causes spring; a trifling, incompetent,