Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 128.djvu/73

Rh  of breaking all the legs from off all the quadrupeds in Noah's ark pales into insignificance beside the rapture of pulling pussy's tail, and half blinding a living terrier. The cat and dog endure from the infant the tortures of Damien without complaint, and purr or wag their tail at each fresh infliction as a new manifestation of regard. Vivisection is a trifle compared with some of the unwitting cruelties of the nursery; but the victims seem to understand that their pains are not intended, and it would be well if a like self-sacrificing enthusiasm could be fostered in the scientific laboratory.

That people do keep pets and do misuse them is a plain and unquestionable fact. Why they keep them is another and much more difficult question. Some, it is true, have a dislike to the destruction of animal life. Cardinal Bellarmine would not disturb the fleas which got their livelihood in his famous beard. Others, again, have been driven to love a swallow from the mere loneliness of prison life, and the only reason for doubting the truth of the legend which connects the name of Bruce with a spider is that similar tales have been told of other famous men. The story of a Lady Berkeley who insisted on keeping her merlins to moult in her bedchamber, and her husband's consequent displeasure, occurs among the annals of the fifteenth century. Little dogs figure on brasses; and the names of "Terri," "Jakke," and "Bo" have come down to us as memorials of pets beloved five hundred years ago. Cowper, besides his hares, petted all kinds of animals, and remonstrated in verse with his spaniel for killing a fledgling. Oldys apostrophized a fly, and Burns a mouse. We think it was Carnot, in the Reign of Terror, that lavished caresses on his dog, while he sent hundreds of human victims to the slaughter. In fact, there are few people come to mature years who at some time of their life have not loved a dear gazelle or other domesticated animal, and been gladdened by its affectionate eye. A taste which is so peculiarly human may be humanizing if properly directed. The child, indeed, will rob a nest to satisfy its longing for a pet. But it is easy to demonstrate the cruelty of interfering with natural laws, and the speedy death of the half-fledged nestling demonstrates clearly enough the futility of the childish aspirations. The sympathies of Bill Sykes, callous as he was, were awakened towards his dog, and even Charon may be supposed occasionally to bestow a friendly pat on one of the heads of Cerberus. Although it has often been remarked that love of the horse accompanies, if it does not cause, the degradation of many a man, yet it would be hard to ascribe the iniquities of a blackleg to any true love of the animal on which, he lays his money. Doubtless the horse of Caligula preferred his oats ungilt, and it is the uncertainty of racing rather than any fault of the racer that attracts rogues to Newmarket and Epsom. A horse would run quite as well, the race would be even more often to the swift, if betting could be abolished. And our prize costermongers and cabmen find kindness to their animals, like honesty, the best policy. The donkey that is starved and beaten seldom favours his driver with more than a spasmodic gallop, while the sleek ass we now occasionally notice in our streets draws more than his own weight of heavy men at a cheerful and willing trot. The principle on which pets are kept is, however, sometimes difficult to find. We were all horrified lately to read of an old lady who starved a houseful of cats, and every Indian traveller tells shocking tales of the cruelty of the Hindoo to the humpbacked cow which he worships as a divinity.

Cruelty to pets is only one aspect of the matter. There are people, especially in towns, whose kindness to their pets is exercised at the expense of their neighbours. So long as they are an amusement to their owners without being a nuisance to the public no one can complain. There are, it is true, crusty people who would like the world better if it contained neither kittens nor babies. But it cannot do real harm to anybody that an old lady should turn rabbits loose in her garden in order to reduce the excessive corpulence of her darling pugs by a little wholesome coursing. It is good for her pets, and does not hurt the rabbits. Nor does it injure the public that twice a year she finds herself under the necessity of posting to the seaside in order to give her favourites the constitutional refreshment of a few walks on the shore. She must post all the way, because it would be impossible to let them enter the cruel den set apart for mere dogs on the railway, and the company will not let her hire a first-class compartment for their use. Even the collier who feeds his bull-pup on beefsteaks and milk, at the cost of half-starving his wife and children, may at least plead that he does not interfere with the comfort or convenience of his neighbours. But it is a little odd that there is no way of restraining him if he would go further. He may, as far as the present state of the