UC-NRLF 2m THE HUMANE IDEA FRANCIS H. ROWLEY lf> ^ -u> w> THE HUMANE IDEA THE HUMANE IDEA A BRIEF HISTORY OP MAN'S ATTITUDE TOWARD THE OTHER ANIMALS, AND OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE HUMANE SPIRIT INTO ORGAN- IZED SOCIETIES BY FRANCIS H. ROWLEY 1 1 PRESIDENT OP THE MASSACHUSETTS SOCIETY FOB THE PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO ANIMALS AND OF THE AMERICAN HUMANE EDUCATION SOCIETY Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing ? and not one of them shall fall on the ground without your Father. JESUS BOSTON AMERICAN HUMANE EDUCATION SOCIETY 1912 COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY AMERICAN HUMANE EDUCATION SOCIETY THE* PLIMPTON PRESS [W D-O] NORWOOD. MASS-U'S'A IP THIS LITTLE VOLUME WERE WORTHY A PLACE BESIDE THEIR FIDELITY AND DEVOTION, IT WOULD BE DEDICATED TO TWO HORSES AND TWO DOGS TO WHOSE COMPANIONSHIP AND INFLUENCE THE AUTHOR OWES MORE THAN THE STRANGER WOULD BELIEVE 257889 CONTENTS PAGE THE PURPOSE ix THE HUMANE IDEA 1 PRIMITIVE MAN 3 THE HEBREW 5 THE GREEK 7 THE ROMAN 14 OTHER LANDS 20 EARLY CHRISTIANITY 22 THE DAWNING OF THE NEW DAY ... 27 AMERICA 36 THINGS TO THINK ABOUT 55 BIBLIOGRAPHY 69 All animals are living hieroglyphs. The dashing dog, and stealthy stepping cat, Hawk, bull, and all that breathe, mean something more To the true eye than their shapes show; for all Were made in love and made to be beloved. Thus must he think as to earth's lower life, Who seeks to win the world to thought and love. PHILIP JAMES BAILEY THE PURPOSE JVlY purpose in this small volume is to be of service, particularly to the ordinary humane worker. Scattered over the coun- try are many deeply interested in the cause that has for its aim the prevention of cruelty to animals and the fostering of such a sentiment as will ultimately make prosecution for cruelty unnecessary. Not a few of these workers are called upon from time to time to speak upon some phase of the subject. Often they are far from public libraries where such books might be obtained as those which would be of assistance to them. It has seemed to me that a brief, yet general survey of the history of the humane idea would be found useful. It was Mr. Henry S. Salt's "Animals' Rights," which I read many years ago, that first indicated to me the direction in which to look for material upon this theme. To Mr. Salt I am much indebted, not only for what he has so effectively done him- self, but for the names of authors to whom he has called attention. To the Countess Cesaresco I am also under no little obliga- tion. Her work entitled "The Place of IX X THE PURPOSE Animals in Human Thought" has been of especial service to me. 1 Wherever I have come upon any one with information to offer upon our topic I have freely availed myself of it. It has been difficult to keep within the narrow limits to which I have tried to con- fine myself. So many phases of the sub- ject have been left untouched, so much excluded that might have been written, that the incompleteness of what I have attempted can be no more evident to anyone else than it is to me. 1 In her "Outdoor Life in Greek and Roman Poets," there will also be found many interesting references to fondness for animals on the part of ancient Greeks and Romans, especially among those who sought pleasure in the pursuits of agriculture. THE HUMANE IDEA Yet I doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs, And the thoughts of men are uriden'd vrith the process of the suns. TENNYSON A HE attempt is made in this little book to trace, as briefly as possible, the history of that humane sentiment, par- ticularly with reference to animals, out of which has grown at last the multitude of organizations that, in our modern day, not only seek to defend God's lowlier crea- tures from man's inhumanity, but to widen still further the spirit that unceasingly pleads for the just and kindly treatment of all sentient life. Man's relation to man, as well as his relation to other animals, falls within the circle of that spirit as it finds expression in what is slowly coming to be known as humane education. The study is a fascinating one and broadens under investigation till one finds himself led out into many lands, and set face to face with the history, the literature, the art, and the religions of mankind. Of all the beasts he learned the language. Learned their names and all their secrets, How the beavers built their lodges, Where the squirrels hid their acorns, How the reindeer ran so swiftly Why the rabbit was so timid, Talked with them whene'er he met them, Called them "Hiawatha's Brothers." LONGFELLOW PRIMITIVE MAN THE story even of primitive man, so far as we can fashion it, is not without interest to the student who follows back the trail in this realm of life. Our earliest ancestors, it seems very probable in the light of what we know, were far less in need of humane societies than we are. That they were not at first hunters and slayers of their humbler brethren of earth and air I think we are warranted in believ- ing. Such other forms of life besides their own, as those which, under the influence of domestication, came to share with them their lot, were cherished, it is supposed, as friends and helpers. Probably only as the race moved toward cooler climates, or as great climatic changes transformed some sunnier land into one of snow and ice, did man find himself compelled to kill the furry creatures of the wild to clothe himself in their skins, or to supply himself with their flesh for food. It was necessity, may we not believe, that at first forced him into his carnivorous habits. Some may recall Ovid's words, perhaps more scientific than once imagined, with reference to the Golden Age: 4 THE HUMANE IDEA "We, by destroying life our life sustain, And gorge the ungodly man with meats obscene. Not so the Golden Age, which fed on fruit, Nor durst with bloody meals its mouth pollute." 1 All this, however, was long before the time of the earliest man of whom we have any definite knowledge. Yet even this ancestor of ours who hunted and killed was a keen observer of animal life as his draw- ings of horse and reindeer on bits of bone, unearthed centuries after, bear witness. 1 See "Outdoor Life in Greek and Roman Poets," (Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco), chap. IX, p. 166, for evidences of Ovid's love for animals. With reference to animal sacrifices he says: "But what didst thou, O ox, and what did ye, O gentle sheep, to deserve a like fate?" Also "The Animals' Cause," published by the Animal Defence and Antivivisection Society, London, 1909, p. 362. THE HEBREW His tender mercies are over all His works. A PSALMIST IF we begin with the Jewish scriptures not a few golden sayings will be recalled that tell of this spirit working in the soul of ancient Israel. Of course, reply may be made at once that the whole system of animal sacrifices goes far to refute any special regard for animal life during a long period of Jewish history. It may be said, however, that many hold they be- lieve with entire reason that for that appalling institution of bloodshed which was a part of Israelitish worship there was no actual divine sanction; that we must see here the persistence of traditional customs and the influence of a priestly order with ends to subserve that were widely different from those great moral goals which rose before the inspired visions of the prophets. One must not forget the significance of Jeremiah's words (7:22), "For I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices; but this thing commanded I them, saying, Obey my 5 6 THE HUMANE IDEA voice, and I will be your God, and ye shall be my people." : Then we recall such positive sayings as, "Thou shall not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn"; 2 "Six days shalt thou do thy work, and on the seventh day shalt thou rest, that thine ox and thine ass may rest, etc."; 3 "Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk"; 4 "The righteous man regardeth the life of his beast." 6 Many similar utterances could be quoted if space permitted. Our socie- ties for the protection of children and animals might indeed, if they wished, go back to the days of the old Hebrew prophet, Jonah, for a divine sanction of their exist- ence. The foolish heart of the ungracious preacher, you remember, was bidden con- template what the destruction of Nineveh would mean to helpless children (the "six score thousand that did not discern be- tween their right hand and their left"), and "much cattle." 6 All will recall Isaiah's vision of that holy mountain in which there is nothing to hurt or to destroy. 7 1 See Hastings' Bible Dictionary, Vol. IV, article on "Sacrifice"; also "The Prophecies of Jeremiah," C. J. Hall, p. 165. 2 Deuteronomy xxv, 4. 8 Exodus xxiii, 12. * Exodus xxiii, 19. 6 Proverbs xii, 10. 6 Jonah iii, 11. 7 For a similar prophetic vision, much discussed as to its interpretation, see the "Fourth Eclogue" of Vergil. THE GREEK Yet dying as he was and almost drained of blood, he brought back the King from the midst of the foe, . . . and when he had carried him beyond weapon range he fell down on the spot and . . . breathed his last almost, as it were, with the con- solation of human feeling. Then King Alexander, when he had gained the victory, founded a city on that site, and in honor of his horse catted it Bucephala. AULUS GELLIUS G REECE, too, bears her witness to the prevalence of this spirit as in many ways touching into softer, fairer colors her marvelous life. True, her Homeric heroes feasted on many a slain victim of field and stall, when "The heralds brought a sacred hecatomb to the gods through the city, and the long-haired Grecians were assembled under the shady grove of far- darting Apollo." But, it has been said, "the ghost of a scruple had to be laid be- fore the feast could be enjoyed." They had no butchers, these early Hellenes. They or their priests slew with their own hands the devoted animals. 1 The ele- ment of sacrifice seems to have been pres- ent everywhere as a sort of apology to "The Iliad," Bk. XIX, 1, 253. 7 8 THE HUMANE IDEA the victim whose flesh was afterward to be eaten. The Iliad and the Odyssey both show us an almost modern attitude held by not a few toward the creatures that were man's faithful helpers. The ox that plowed his fields, the horse that carried him in battle, these were prized and loved by many of Homer's bravest and best. The following lines I have found quoted from the Greek poet Addaeus Macedonis: *' Alkon's ox is worn and old, It has gained him grain and gold; Must it to the shambles go? *Nay,' says Alkon, 'never so. Long he helped me at the plough, I'll be grateful to him now His declining days shall pass Knee deep in the pleasant grass.* " l This might have been written yesterday, so truly does it represent many a modern man's thought toward some loyal four- footed servant. No one who has ever read the Odyssey can forget the dog Argus, the sole friend of wandering Ulysses, that, old, neglected, dying, still recognized the re- turning pilgrim. This is the picture the great artist sketches in half a dozen lines: "A dog was lying near, And lifted up his head and pricked his ears. 1 See Palatine Anthology. THE GREEK 9 'Twas Argus, which the much enduring man Ulysses long before had reared, but left Untried, when for the hallowed town of Troy He sailed. . . . And when he saw Ulysses drawing near, he wagged his tail And dropped his ears, but found that he could come No nearer to his master, . . . Ulysses, absent now for twenty years." l In their games, the chariot race was not only the favorite sport, but was thought of as a religious event, and the horses parti- cipating in the triumph shared the glory conferred upon their owners. "For many centuries," Plutarch tells us, "the graves of Cimon's mares, with which he had thrice conquered at the Olympian games, were pointed out to the stranger, near his own tomb." 2 The Athenians even inflicted a fine, we read, on some heartless monster who skinned a goat alive. 3 "Wanton cruelty to animals," it has been written, and I think justly, "seemed to the Greeks an outrage to the gods." Herodotus, in a story quoted by Lecky, represents the sparrows that nested under 1 "The Odyssey," Bk. XVII, 11, 291-327. 2 Montaigne's "Essays," close of chap. LXVIII. The statement is also made in this connection that Xanthippus "caused his dog to be interred on an eminence near the sea, which has ever since retained the name." 3 "The Place of Animals in Human Thought," Countess Martinengo-Cesaresco, p. 30. 10 THE HUMANE IDEA the porticos of the temples, as the guests of the gods; and Aelian is reported by Lecky as saying that the Athenians con- demned to death a boy for killing a sparrow that had taken refuge in the temple of Aesculapius. 1 We all recall the Hebrew singer's exquisite lines: "Yea, the sparrow hath found an house And the swallow a nest for herself where she may lay her young, Even thine altars, O Lord of Hosts My King, and my God." 2 The influence of Pythagoras' (died 496 BC?) teaching with reference to transmigra- tion deserves more attention than we have time to give. It may at least be said that there are those who have ventured the suspicion that his hidden motive in the promulgation of the doctrine of reincarna- tion was to make men more humane. That this was the effect of his life and work will scarcely be questioned. Aristotle's "On the Parts of Animals" has still interest for the philozoist. "Man and the mule," he remarks, "are always tame." We may not like the grouping, but he might have said a worse thing about us. The mule is a much maligned creature. He is no fool, as the old colored man inti- 1 Lecky's "European Morals," Vol. II, p. 163. 8 Psalm Ixxxiv. THE GREEK 11 mated when he said: "I have learned if you have anything to say to a mule, you better say it to his face." Except in the senses of touch and taste, Aristotle held we are far surpassed by the other animals. Though he affirmed that only man, in the proper sense of the word, has the power of reason, he found in animals evident traces of a moral disposition. 1 He recognizes in them foresight, skill in meeting diffi- cult situations that suddenly arise, and a strange power often of anticipating changes in wind and weather. With many others, we should not hesitate to differ with this great Greek authority concerning the animal's inability to reason. When a dog stands on the bank of a stream, prepares to jump, runs farther up where the stream is narrower, looks, hesitates, then goes still farther up to a yet narrower place before making the leap; we wonder how that mental act differs from our own in deciding whether it is safe to attempt to spring over a brook where it is six feet wide or whether we would not better follow up the bank and try it where we felt much surer of not slipping back or landing in the water. 1 See "On the Parts of Animals," Bk. II, chap. X. "For of all living beings with which we are acquainted, man alone partakes of the divine, or, a,t any rate, partakes of it in a fuller measure than the rest.'* 12 THE HUMANE IDEA On the whole, in spite of the exceptions that confront us in Greek history and literature, and notwithstanding the atti- tude of contempt in which so largely the Greeks regarded the world outside their own borders, and their system of slavery, the Greeks were in many respects respon- sive to the influence of the humane spirit, and did much to enlarge its power. 1 Both Plutarch and Pliny the Elder are authorities for the following interesting story that reveals something of the sensi- tiveness of ancient Greece to the claims of this spirit : " When Pericles was building the Parthenon, a great number of mules were employed in drawing the stones up the hill of the Acropolis. Some of them be- came too old for the work, and these were set at liberty to pasture at large. But one old mule gravely walked every day to the stone yard and accompanied, or rather led, the procession of mule carts to and fro. The Athenians were delighted with its devotion to duty and decided that it should be supported at the expense of the state 1 When it was suggested once that certain cruel sports, in imitation of the Roman spectacles, should be intro- duced into Athens, we are told that one opposing it said, in his address to the people, "Men of Athens, before you pass this motion, do not forget to destroy the Altar of Pity." See Henry S. Salt's "Humanitarianism: Its General Principles and Progress." * THEGREEK 13 for the rest of its days." x According to Pliny, the mule of the Parthenon lived till it had attained its eightieth year, "a record," it has been cleverly observed, "that seems startling even having regard to the proverbial longevity of pensioners." Suppose the story but a legend, which we have no reason to do, even then, that the legend arose, is evidence of the existence of a regard for man's humble servants that we had hardly expected to find so far away. Among the many shrines that forced the Christian apostle to say, "I perceive, O men of Athens, that ye are very religious," was one consecrated to Compassion. 1 "The Place of Animals in Human Thought," Countess Martinengo-Cesaresco, pp. 66-67. THE ROMAN The birds in airy space might safely move. And timorous hares on heaths securely rove; Nor needed fish the guileless hook to fear. OVID WE enter a different atmosphere when we pass into the Roman world. "Who could imagine," an author writes, "Pericles presiding over a Roman holiday?" To dwell upon the cruel and bloody sports of the Roman arena is entirely unnecessary. Lecky says that in a single day at the dedication of the Colosseum by Titus, five thousand animals perished. 1 There must have been big game hunters and trappers then as now, justifying their barbarous cruelties, if not on scientific grounds, as in our day, then on the ground of the profit to be gained. Under Trajan the games continued for one hundred and twenty- three consecutive days. These atrocities, however, it should be said, did not charac- terize the earlier history of Rome. Prior to the year 186 B.C. there is no record of such bloodthirsty cruelties as in later times furnished amusement for the pleasure- 1 Lecky's "European Morals," Vol. I, p. 280. . 14 THEROMAN 15 loving crowds that thronged to the Colos- seum, where wealth and fashion, and extravagance gone mad, reveled in scenes that seem to us incredible. 1 Still we are forced to believe that even in the Rome of those inhumane days there were innumerable exceptions to the all too common disregard of the sufferings of men and animals. Behind those few finer spirits whose names and writings add such luster to the annals of the empire there must have been a great company of kindly souls who found in teachers like Plutarch (b. 46 A.D.), Seneca (4 B.C. 65 A.D.), and Porphyry (233-305), voices that uttered thoughts and feelings their own souls could share. 2 In his essay 1 Yet are not the destruction, in modern times, of our birds of rare plumage, our merciless butchery of the seal, our inhuman methods of slaughtering our food animals, our prize fights, war, and, in America, our lynchings, quite as serious a reproach to our civilization when one thinks of the Christian centuries behind us? 2 The Countess Cesaresco makes this very evident in her studies of the Greek and Roman poets. There was another side to the life of multitudes in what we call pagan times than that which has been vividly pictured by many writers anxious to deepen the contrast between the ages before Christianity and those that followed its advent. The spirit of Christianity has always been molding human life from the day of man's first appearance. See also Cicero's letter to Marcus Marius (56 B.C.), quoted in Alfred Austin's autobiography, Vol. I, p. 120, "What pleasure can a cultivated man have, when either a helpless 16 THE HUMANE IDEA on "Clemency" Seneca portrays to us a compassion toward all life that shows how deeply his character had been influenced by Sotio, his master, who was a disciple of Pythagoras and who taught a sacred regard for all living creatures whether in the human realm or below it. 1 Porphyry, in his treatise "On Absti- nence from Animal Food," writes words that are worthy to be placed beside the latest utterances of the most modern humanitarians. He says: "Justice was not introduced from the alliance of men to each other, but justice consists in abstaining from injuring any- thing which is not noxious. Therefore since justice consists in not injuring any- thing, it must be extended as far as to every animated nature. He who is led by reason does not confine harmless conduct to men alone, but extends it to other animals and is so more similiar to' divinty." 2 In the same Book he says: "If, however, it be requisite to speak the truth, not only reason may be perceived in all animals, but in many of them it is so great as to approximate to perfection." These last words recall the saying of Darwin: "We have seen that the senses and intuitions, man is torn to pieces by a sanguinary beast, or a splendid animal is transfixed by a hunting spear." 1 See essay on "Clemency," Bonn's Classical Library. 2 Porphyry on "Abstinence from Food," Bk. III. THEROMAN 17 the various emotions and faculties, such as love, memory, attention, curiosity, imi- tation, reason, etc., of which man boasts, may be found in an incipient, or even sometimes in a well-developed condition, in the lower animals." x In the light of the latest conclusions of science are we not returning to an earlier and truer conception of the] unity of all life, and to a brotherhood wider than that which has been the theme of much of our Christian theology? But of all these choice souls Plutarch is the one pre-eminently to whom we turn as the teacher of his day and worthy to be ranked with the leaders of recent times who have been recognized as most imbued with the spirit of a great humanity. While evidences of his gentle temper appear in his "Lives," it is in the far less well known "Moralia" that he is seen as the friend and champion of that wide world of life below us. There he has three essays devoted to animals. They are, "On Eating of Flesh," "Which are the most Crafty, Water Ani- mals or those Creatures that tread upon the Land?" and "That Brute Beasts Reason." 2 "It is the voice of the highly civilized Greek," says the Countess Cesa- 1 "Descent of Man," chap. III. 2 Plutarch's " Moralia," Prof. William W. Goodwin's translation, Vol. V. 18 THE HUMANE IDEA resco, "addressing the young barbarians of Rome." The essays delight you with their wise moderation. He never allows his feelings to carry him into wild or extravagant assertions. Always under self-control, always dignified, calm, patient, not seek- ing to force agreement with himself when there may be just ground for a differ- ence of opinion, he nevertheless, with utmost frankness and sincerity, stands forth the unswerving friend of the defense- less animals, and pleads for them on the ground of a universal benevolence and a wide justice that make his words sound almost as if written yesterday. Though averse to eating flesh, he refuses to de- nounce you if you are not a vegetarian. "Be as humane as you can," he says. " Cause as little suffering as possible. Let us eat flesh if we must, but for hunger, not self-indulgence. If we kill animals we must still be compassionate, not heaping outrages and tortures, as, alas is done every day." "When we take our recrea- tion," he writes, "those who help us in the fun ought to share in it and be amused as well." "With him cruelty to animals does not lie in the use but in the abuse of them," says one summarizing his opinions; "it is not cruel to kill them if they are incom- patible with our own existence, it is not cruel to tame or train to our service those THEROMAN 19 made by nature gentle and loving toward man which become the companions of his toil according to their natural aptitude." "The Stoics," he writes, "made sensi- bility toward animals a preparation to humanity and compassion because the gradually formed habit of the lesser affec- tions is capable of leading men very far." Take the following from his "Marcus Cato": "Kindness and beneficence should be extended to creatures of every species, and these still flow from the breast of a well-natured man as streams that issue from the living fountain. A good man will take care of his horses and dogs, not only when they are young, but when old and past service." "We certainly ought not," he continues, "to treat living creatures like shoes or household goods, which when worn out with use, we throw away, and were it only to teach benevolence to human kind, we should be merciful to other crea- tures. For my own part I would not sell even an old ox." Of Plutarch, Lecky says, "He places the duty of kindness to animals on the broad ground of the affections, and he urges that duty with an emphasis and a detail to which no adequate parallel can, I believe, be found in the Christian writ- ings for at least seventeen hundred years." l 1 Lecky's "European Morals," Vol. II, p. 166. OTHER LANDS Nay let me lose such glory ; for its sake I would not leave one living thing I loved. . . . not for Swarga's bliss Quit I Mahendra, this poor clinging dog. "Idylls of India," SIB EDWIN ARNOLD llGYPT, Persia, India, the lands that own the faith of Mohammed, indeed the entire Orient, offers much to the student of man's relation to the animal world. Into this wide field I do not even attempt a glance. In general it may be said that, all things considered, animals probably have received a kinder treatment in far Eastern countries than in the Occident. The doctrine of reincarnation has doubt- less been influential here, but outside of this the spirit of Eastern civilization in many ways is of a gentler type than that which has characterized the life of the Western world. 1 The West has been described by more than one Oriental as "the hell of animals." The Jainas will kill nothing. They will not eat flesh of any kind. And this * Sir Edwin Arnold's "Idylls of India," "The Hound of Yudhishthira." 20 OTHER LANDS 21 not because of their transmigration ideas merely, but because, they affirm, of kind- ness and humanity. This last statement I know is seriously questioned by com- petent scholars. The Buddhist will not kill that he may eat, but if an animal is dead and the life gone, "why," he says, "shall I not eat its flesh?" In the face of all that has been taught in India by these two systems, I have read very recently a paper, 1 by a humane officer in Bengal, which charges upon that coun- try an amount of cruelty in the treatment of animals that makes one wonder if it can be the land of Buddha and Mahavira. Somewhere I saw the statement that whatever is said of the treatment of animals in the East, this at least is true, that the children are not cruel. Travelers in Japan report a regard for animals as well as for children that stands in marked contrast with much of what is true in Europe and America. 1 "The Animals' Cause" (published by the Animal Defence and Antivivisection Society, London), p. 316. EARLY CHRISTIANITY So the wild birds were tamed by love alone, And dwelt with Francis in his convent home. AXON /TLMONG the puzzling questions that arise in tracing the development of the humane idea is that connected with the apparent indifference of early Christianity with regard to the value of subhuman life. The fault was not, certainly, in the spirit or teachings of the founder of the Christian faith. No more wonderful word was ever spoken with reference to man's attitude toward all sentient life below him, or with more wide-reaching significance in this direction, than the saying of Jesus which tells us that not even a sparrow can fall to the ground without our Father. If the Infinite and the Eternal marks the death of so frail and fleeting a being as a sparrow, how can we be the children of our Father in heaven and not bear toward bird and beast the relationship of elder brothers, guarding them against all injustice and needless suffering? St. Paul, influenced here no doubt by the prevailing Jewish thought of his day 22 EARLY CHRISTIANITY 23 with reference to animals, failed to see in the old Hebrew prohibition against muzzling the ox that threshed the corn, any divine care for oxen; that was something quite unworthy the great God. 1 There is a St. Paul Humane Society, but it is named after St. Paul of Minnesota and not of Tarsus or Jerusalem. Where else, how- ever, did the mighty heart of St. Paul fail in its almost divine sympathies and com- passion? Surely we can forgive him this. The answer to the question, why the Church for so many centuries practically ignored the claims of the animal world is too many-sided to be more than outlined. In the first place the value placed upon the individual human soul by Christianity was supreme, and the vast importance of its salvation was naturally held to be the all- absorbing duty of the Church. This dwarfed every other consideration. Of what value are the beasts that, it was taken for granted, perish, compared with the one and only thing of moment immortal man? Beyond this, and perhaps as scarcely less determining, is the fact, called to our atten- tion by a modern writer, that two of the pronounced critics of early Christianity were Celsus (first half first century) and Porphyry, writers sharing in ideas of the 1 I Corinthians ix, 9-10. 24 THE HUMANE IDEA animal world that savored of oriental and pagan cults. 1 Both these men were worthy antago- nists of the early faith Celsus, a man of vast learning and wide knowledge of historic religions; and Porphyry, known as the philosopher, the most learned thinker of his time. "Celsus appears to have inclined," says this writer, "toward the theory that the soul, life, mind, only, is made by God, the corrupt- ible and passing body being a natural growth or perhaps the handiwork of in- ferior spirits. He denied that reason be- longed to man alone, and still more strongly that God created the universe for man rather than for other animals only absurd pride, he affirms, can engender such a thought. He knew very well that this, far from being a new idea, was the normal view of the ancient world from Aristotle to Cicero. He takes Euripides to task for saying, 'The sun and moon are made to serve mankind.' Why mankind? he asks; why not ants and flies? Night serves them also for rest and day for seeing and working. As to ants, he says, they practise the science of social economy just as well as we do; they have granaries which they fill with provisions for the 1 "The Place of Animals in Human Thought," Countess Martinengo-Cesaresco, p. 339. EARLY CHRISTIANITY 25 winter; they help their comrades if they see them bending under the weight of a burden; they carry their dead to places which become family tombs; they address each other when they meet; whence it fol- lows that they never lose their way. We conclude, therefore, that they must have complete reasoning powers and common notions of general truths, and that they have a language and know how to express fortuitous events." l Porphyry, we have seen, held to very much the same ideas concerning animal life. "It could not have been," says the writer recently quoted, "a fortunate coin- cidence that two of the most prominent men who held these ideas in the early centuries were declared foes of the new faith." In combating them the early Fathers may have been unduly led to ignore the value of all life below the human. That the more eastern and pagan faiths gave a larger place in their thought to the subhuman world of life, I feel personally convinced, had something to do with the seeming disregard of the whole subject by the Fathers. Here at least is the fact that for centuries the Church remained steadily indifferent to the claims of the lower animals; and, save for such exceptions as St. Francis 1 See Maeterlinck's "The Life of the Bee." 26 THE HUMANE IDEA of Assisi (1182-1226), and the experiences of a host of saintly anchorets which gave rise to many a legend of animal intelli- gence and companionship, and the ani- mal symbols used of Christ, like the lamb, the panther, and others, exerted no influence to inculcate the spirit of any just consideration for them. Perhaps this ought not to surprise us, for, even down to our own day, it can hardly be said that the ministry of the Christian church as a whole sustains any vital rela- tion to the great humane movement. There are splendid exceptions, but, to the vast majority of them, the care and considera- tion given to animals seems rather the work of men and women more or less odd, to say the least. This, at any rate, we are compelled to say as the result of our ex- perience and it is an experience that entitles us to speak with some degree of assurance that, directly, the pulpit has not been, as an institution, a very serious helper of our humane societies. THE DAWNING OF THE NEW DAY The year's at the Spring, The day's at the morn. BROWNING W E wait till the time of the revival of learning before we begin again to hear, save here and there, any voice that clearly intimates that animals have rights that man is bound to respect. Leonardo da Vinci, 1452-1519, and Montaigne, 1533- 1592, and Giordano Bruno, 1548-1600, all left behind them sayings that remind one of Plutarch and Porphyry, but they were the exceptions. 1 The humanist was by no means always the humanitarian. Slowly, however, in that period marked by many a fierce spirit of cruelty and brutal inhumanity does the humane sentiment rise into recognition. Still it is not until 1 Montaigne's "Essays," chap. LXVIII, "Of Cruelty." "There is a certain natural commerce and mutual obliga- tion between them (the animals) and us." See also chap. LXIX for many references to animals. 27 28 THE HUMANE IDEA we come into the eighteenth century that the evidences appear in the recorded utter- ances of leaders of thought that men's consciences are seriously awakening to their duties to their humbler fellow-crea- tures. Voltaire and Rousseau were fore- most spirits of that period which began to see with nobler vision the larger things that opened before humanity. It was Rousseau who, no matter what we say of his strange life, said, "O men be humane! It is your first duty. What wisdom can there be for you without humanity?" 1 "From the great Revolution of 1789," says Henry S. Salt, "dates the period when the world- wide spirit of humanitarianism, which had hitherto been felt by but one man in a million the thesis of the philosopher or the vision of the poet began to disclose itself, gradually and dimly at first, as an essential feature of democracy." 2 Leaving untouched the doctrine of Des- cartes which ranked the lower animals as mere automata, without sensibility or capacity for pain a teaching which un- doubtedly had much to do with retard- ing the development in many quarters 1 For Rousseau's fondness for animals see his "Second Dialogue." Whether we translate these words "O men be humane," or "O men be human," it matters not for the thought. 8 See Henry S. Salt's "Animals' Rights," p. 4. DAWNING OF THE NEW DAY 29 of a juster conception of animal life; pass- ing by Schopenhauer's opposition to this teaching of the Cartesian School, in his "Foundation of Morality," 1 we turn to the England of the eighteenth century to find the marked leaders of this later day in the realm of the humanitarian move- ment so far as animals are concerned. There are many names that deserve attention, but we tarry to mention only a few. There was John Hildrop, 1742, author of "Free Thought upon the Brute Creation." The Rev. Dr. Humphrey Primatt, also, 1776, whose "Dissertation on the Duty of Mercy and the Sin of Cruelty to Brute Animals" is a strong plea for justice and humanity. We select the following from one of his volumes: "And for the same reason (that is, be- cause a man would consider it unjust to cause another man unnecessary pain) he will not torment or abuse a brute, but will consider that the meanest creature upon earth, if it be in no respect harmful to him, has an equal right with him to enjoy the blessings of life." "The many horrid instances of cru- elty practised by men . . . would almost tempt one to think that a great part of 1 For translation of a remarkable passage see Mr. Howard Williams' "Ethics of Diet." 30 THE HUMANE IDEA mankind believed that cruelty to brutes is not an act of injustice. It is certain, however, that the cruelty of men to brutes is a greater act of injustice than the cruelty of men to men." He then proceeds to show that animals have the following rights: The right to food, to rest and to tender usage at the hands of men, for he says, "These things the goodness of their Creator has been pleased to covenant for on their behalf and to enjoin by His written law." This he shows by the words which "for- bid the thresher to muzzle the ox," by the command, "the cattle shall have rest on the Sabbath day," and by the quotation, a "righteous man will re- gard the life of his beast." He laments that so few parents instruct children to treat animals kindly. Of allowing children to be cruel, he says, "Such indulgence roots out from their once tender hearts every feeling of pity and compassion, so true is it that our treat- ment of beasts has an influence on our moral character." l He advocates the Golden Rule as our law for the treatment of animals. Soame Jenyns (1704-1787), essayist and poet, wrote on "Cruelty to Inferior 1 "The Book of Nature," Toogood, Boston, 1802, to which is added, p. 87, Primatt's Dissertation. DAWNING OF THE NEW DAY 31 Animals." l These are some of the finer souls who prepared the way for better known successors and for the larger day into which we have entered. Among such, during the latter part of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century, was Jeremy Bentham, scholar and jurist, who first advocated legal measures for the protection of ani- mals, asserting that as "slaves have been treated by the law exactly upon the same footing as, in England, for example, the inferior races of animals are still, yet the day may come when the rest of the animal creation may acquire those rights which could never have been withholden from them but by the hand of tyranny." Of Bentham, C. M. Atkinson, one of his biographers, says: "Bentham in- sisted that acts of cruelty to animals must be classed among crimes or offenses cog- nizable by law; the word crime, said he, being incurably indistinct and ambiguous, is the word to be employed on all rhetorical occasions. He foretold the coming of a time when humanity shall stretch her mantle over everything which breathes." "Why, he asked, should the law refuse its protection or deny its aid to any sensi- 1 We have been pleased to discover that Jenyns not only wrote upon this topic, but against the taxation of the American colonies by Great Britain. 32 THE HUMANE IDEA tive being? With characteristic vigor he urged the suppression of all forms of wilful cruelty." l It is exceedingly interesting, so far back from our present time, to have him quoted as "contending that the death of animals may be rendered less painful by the adop- tion of many simple processes well worthy of being studied." Here is a prevision of those more humane methods of slaughter that are slowly taking possession of the minds of men. Bentham also insisted that "if humanity to animals the sentiment of benevolence were inculcated in the minds of children, it would tend toward the prevention of crimes of violence." 2 Here again he is in entire harmony with the latest humanitarians. His biographer has called attention to the fact that the dis- tinguished painter, Hogarth, "in tracing cruelty through its different stages had represented it as beginning with delight in the suffering of animals, and ending in the most savage murder." But Jeremy Bentham was ahead of his time. The world was not yet ready for legislation in defense of the animal. We wait till 1811 before another champion of the jus animalium appears with the pur- 1 "Jeremy Bentham: His Life and Work," C. M. Atkinson, pp. 145-147. * See Bentham's "Pity's Gift" (1798). DAWNING OF THE NEW DAY 33 pose to embody it in the law of the land. Lord Erskine, in that year of grace, intro- duces into Parliament a bill for the legal protection of animals. In that august body, where noble lords of the realm, bishops of the Church of the All-Merciful sat in the seats of the mighty, his voice was drowned amid a wild tumult of hisses, catcalls, and laughter. Ten years pass and once again a member of this same legislature rises to offer a bill in behalf of those who can never plead for themselves in any court of j ustice . This time it is Richard Martin of Galway , an Irishman, a man whom no ridicule or laughter can crush or cow. Mr. Martin, justly or un- justly, we cannot say, had acquired quite a reputation as a duelist. It is related that after having introduced his measure in Parliament and having returned to his seat, a startling wail broke out from some- one behind him. This, it is supposed, was an attempt to imitate the cry of a cat and was evidently aimed in reproach at Martin. He rose from his seat and, with a look that few men cared to face, turned and very deliberately said, "Will the gentle- man who has just spoken please stand up?" No one responding, Martin, ad- dressing the Chair, said, "Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman who insulted me will send his card to the Clerk's desk, I will retire to a committee room and explain 34 THE HUMANE IDEA the bill to him." 1 It is needless to say no card was forthcoming. It needed an Irish heart, strong, brave, impulsive, yet tender and compassionate. Backed by a little group of kindred souls he forced through Parliament in 1822 the first legislation of modern times that prom- ised legal protection for animals. This bill is known as "Humanity Martin's Cattle Bill," and Richard Martin's name is writ- ten high on the scroll that bears the list of the great leaders in our cause. It should be said that this Act of 1822 did not include by any means all animals. The bull and the dog were not protected from cruelty by its provisions. When, however, in 1824 the English Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was founded, as the fruit of Martin's Bill, efforts were put forth for its amendment, resulting in securing in 1835 protection for the bull, the dog, and lamb, and prohibit- ing the baiting and fighting of dogs, bulls, bears, badgers, and cocks. 2 Other and important amendments have been secured from time to time, the last having been obtained in 1911, which has considerably increased the power of the Royal Society. Queen Victoria was a loyal supporter of the English S. P. C. A. 1 "The Humane Movement," McCrea, p. 30. "The Humane Movement," McCrea, p. 31. DAWNING OF THE NEW DAY 35 through her long reign. Indeed, it was because of her interest and patronage that the title "Royal" was bestowed upon the organization. In England the one great parent society is represented by many branches throughout the island. AMERICA Let each new temple, nobler than the last, Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast. HOLMES W HEN we cross to our own shores we find that, long before any organized efforts were made in America toward the forma- tion of societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals, there had been as in England notable pioneers in the field of humane sentiment and expression. The first, so far as we have been able to discover, was that distinguished advocate of so much that is distinctly American, Thomas Paine. In his "Age of Reason" he says: "The moral duty of man consists in imitating the moral goodness and benefi- cence of God manifested in the creation toward all his creatures. . . . Everything of persecution and revenge between man and man, and everything of cruelty to animals is a violation of moral duty." "The only idea we can have of serving God is that of contributing to the hap- piness of the living creation God has made." x 1 "The Age of Reason," by Thomas Paine, edited by Moncure Daniel Conway, Part I, p. 83. 36 AMERICA 37 There is also in the Pennsylvania Mag- azine for May, 1775, a poem by him bearing the title, "Cruelty to Animals Exposed." The poem describes Paine's vigorous deliverance of a little kitten from the fate of being destroyed by dogs into the midst of which a "wretch" had thrown her. That he anticipated the need of slaughter-house reform seems evident by his description of a scene that met his eye as he followed the heartless possessor of the kitten to the place where he flung her among the dogs: "Without the town, besmear'd with filth and blood, And foul with stench, a common butch' ry stood; Where sheep by scores unpitied fell a prey, And lordly oxen groan' d their lives away; Where village dogs, with half the dogs in town, Contention held, and quarrel'd for a bone." Still another early friend of animals appears in Samuel J. Pratt (1838), who, picturing the cruelties of slavery, portrays also the suffering of the subhuman world, calling attention particularly to the atroci- ties of the slaughter-house. The lines that follow are worth quoting: *Tis not enough that daily slaughter feeds, That the fish leaves its stream, the lamb its meads, That the reluctant ox is dragg'd along, And the bird ravish'd from its tender song, That in reward of all her music giv'n, 38 THE HUMANE IDEA The lark is murder'd as she soars to Heaven: 'Tis not enough, our appetites require That on their altars hecatombs expire; But cruel man, with more than bestial power, Must heap fresh horrors on life's parting hour: Full many a being that bestows its breath, Must prove the pang that waits a lingering death, Here, close pent up, must gorge unwholesome food, There, render drop by drop the smoking blood; The quiv'ring flesh improves as slow it dies, And Lux'ry sees th' augmented whiteness rise; Some gashed and mangled feel the torturer's art, Writhe in their wounds, tho' sav'd each vital part. Ask you the cause? the food more tender grows, And callous Lux'ry triumphs in the blows: For this, are some to raging flames consign'd While yet alive, to sooth our taste refin'd! O power of mercy, that suspends the rod! O shame to man, impiety to God! Thou polish'd Christian, in the untutor'd see, The sacred right of sweet HUMANITY. Thine is the World, thy crimson spoils enjoy. But let no wanton arts thy soul employ; Live, tho' thou dost on blood, ah! still refrain To load thy victims with superfluous pain; Ev'n the gaunt tiger, tho' no life he saves, In generous haste devours what famine craves; The bestial paw may check thy human hands, And teach dispatch to what thy want demands, Abridge thy sacrifice, and bid thy knife, For HUNGER KILL, BUT NEVER SPORT WITH LIFE." "Tyrants o'er brutes with ease extend the plan, And rise in cruelty from beast to man: Their sordid policy each crime allows, The flesh that quivers and the blood that flows, AMERICA 39 The furious stripes that murder in a day, Or torturing arts that kill by dire delay; The fainting spirit and the bursting vein, All, all are reconcil'd to Christian gain." l EARLY LEGISLATION It is interesting to find that, some time before any organized movement in the direction of the prevention of cruelty to animals was begun in this country, three States, at least, had secured the passage of laws making possible to some degree, the protection of animals. The first law that we have been able to discover is the follow- ing, which was passed by the legislature of New York State in 1829: Section 26. MAIMING AND CRUELTY TO ANIMALS. Every person who shall ma- liciously kill, maim or wound any horse, ox or other cattle, or any sheep, belong- ing to another, or shall maliciously and cruelly beat or torture any such animal, whether belonging to himself or another, shall, upon conviction, be adjudged guilty of a misdemeanor. Title 6, Part IV., Chapter 1, Section 26, Vol. II, page 695, of the Revised Statutes of the State of New York, January 1, 1829. Massachusetts comes next, with a statute reported in 1834 by a commission 1 "Humanity or Rights of Nature" (pamphlets on slavery), by S. J. Pratt. 40 THE HUMANE IDEA appointed by the governor to revise the general statutes of the commonwealth, and this became operative in 1836: "Every person who shall cruelly beat or torture any horse, ox or other animal, whether belonging to himself or another, shall be punished by imprisonment in the county jail for not more than one year or by fine not exceeding one hundred dollars." Section 22, Chap. 130, Revised Statutes of Mass. (1836). In recommending this provision to the legislature the commissioners say in their report on the general statutes of the com- monwealth (1834): "It probably is not generally known in the community that extreme cruelty to ani- mals even when inflicted by the owner is an offense punished by the common law. Almost every one must have witnessed very revoltable instances of such cruelty, particularly with regard to horses. There seems to be less excuse for the commission of this offense than most others; and the commissioners submit for the consideration of the legislature the expediency of adopt- ing some reasonable provision on the subject." At common law cruelty to animals was not an offense on the ground of the pain and suffering inflicted (People v. Brunell 48 How. Pr., N. Y., 435). But when the act was committed publicly and so as to AMERICA 41 constitute a nuisance, or when committed with a malicious intent to injure the owner it was indictable. (Stage Horse cases 15 Abb. Pr. N.S., N. Y., 51 ; U. S. v. McDuell, 5 Cranch C. C. (U. S.) 391; People v. Brunell, supra.) It was therefore in 1836 that cruelty to animals first became in Massachusetts a criminal offense on the ground of suffering and pain inflicted. In 1855, Senator William A. Crabbe, of Pennsylvania, had drawn up and presented to the legislature of his State this statute: AN ACT To prevent and punish wanton cruelty to animals in the City of Philadelphia. Section 1. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the Commonwealth in General Assembly met, and it is hereby enacted by the authority of the same. That from and after the passage of this act any person or persons who shall, in the City of Philadelphia, wantonly or cruelly maltreat, beat or otherwise abuse any animal or animals, belonging either to himself or to others, -shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and shall be fined by any alderman of said city, for the first offense, in a sum not less than five dollars nor more than ten dollars, and for the 42 THE HUMANE IDEA second and every subsequent offense, in a sum not less than ten nor exceeding twenty dollars, to be paid to the guardians of the poor for the use of the said city : and if said fine or penalty be not paid, then said alderman shall commit said offender to the county prison, there to remain until discharged by due course of law, provided: That when the fine imposed exceeds the sum of five dollars, the party complained against may appeal from the decision of said alderman to the court of quarter ses- sions, upon his entering bail in the nature of a recognizance in the usual manner, for his appearance at the said court, where the offense shall be prosecuted in the same manner as is now directed by law in such cases: And provided also, That the pro- visions of this act shall in no way interfere with the present common law remedy by indictment except when the party has been tried before an alderman as aforesaid, and the case not appealed from or returned to the court of quarter sessions. Approved the third day of May, A.D. 1855. JAMES POLLOCK. Page 421 P.L. 1855. Originally it was intended that this law should cover the entire state of Pennsyl- vania, but by reason of an amendment it was restricted to the city of Philadelphia. AMERICA 43 HENRY BERGH The first organized work, however, in behalf of animals in America was under- taken by the now widely known humani- tarian, Henry Bergh. Mr. Bergh was born in the city of New York in 1823. His father, who had been a successful shipbuilder, left him at his death a comfortable fortune. He was educated at Columbia College, having traveled some time in Europe before the completion of his college life. In 1862 he was appointed Secretary of the Legation at St. Peters- burg and Acting Consul. It is there that he first became interested in the subject of prevention of cruelty to animals. Upon his return to New York he de- voted himself to awakening public senti- ment on their behalf, and finally, as the result of his unremitting labor, there was passed, April 10, 1866, by the New York State Legislature, the act of incorporation of the American Society for the Preven- tion of Cruelty to Animals. On April 22, twelve days later, the Society was organized in Clinton Hall. Among the notable men who stood with Mr. Bergh in this movement were Peter Cooper, George Bancroft, the famous historian, and Horace Greeley. At this time the only law with reference 44 THE HUMANE IDEA to animal protection in New York State was one which, as already seen, was aimed at any person who "shall maliciously kill or wound any horse, ox, cattle or sheep belonging to himself or another, or who shall maliciously and cruelly beat any such animal belonging to himself or another." Nothing in this law was de- signed to cover such cruelties as were often practised upon a great multitude of food animals, nothing that protected the cat or dog, nothing that forbade the aban- donment of a sick or injured animal, or leaving it to die from lack of food and exposure. An interesting event in the early his- tory of this Society has been told by one of Mr. Bergh's biographers as follows: "A benevolent Frenchman named Louis Bonard died and bequeathed his property to the Society. Mr. Bergh did not meet Mr. Bonard until just before his death when he was sent for to visit him at St. Vincent's Hospital. 'I have,' said the sick man, 'long entertained a deep regard for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and want to bequeath to it all my property. ' The amount was more than one hundred thousand dollars. It has been said that this Mr. Bonard had made a large part of his fortune in the fur busi- ness and that it was a satisfaction to his conscience that he could thus in some way AMERICA 45 try to make recompense for the cruelty his business had necessitated." It is a fact not generally known that it was also through Mr. Bergh's activities that the first society in the world for the protection of children from cruelty was founded. 1 He died March 12, 1888. I know of no more striking evidence of the progress of this cause in America than the fact that forty-two years after Henry Bergh, amid ridicule and contempt, founded the New York Society, there was established at Columbia University a chair on the "Henry Bergh Foundation for the Promotion of Humane Education." CAROLINE EARLE WHITE The organization of the second anti- cruelty society in the United States took place in Philadelphia. At that time Mrs. Caroline Earle White, now, 1912, the President of the Women's Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, was in the prime of her early womanhood. By nature deeply interested in the animal world, she was led by reports of what was being done in New York to visit Mr. Bergh, that she might learn from him the methods he had adopted in form- ing the American Society. She returned 1 Bulletin of the American S. P. C. A. for February, 1912. 46 THE HUMANE IDEA to her own city greatly stirred by the interview and, single-handed, set about at once securing the pledges of prominent citizens to join in a movement to organize a similar society in Philadelphia. To this lifelong champion of the animals' cause this noble and accomplished woman is, therefore, due the founding of the Penn- sylvania Society in 1867. GEORGE THORNDIKE ANGELL Two years before Mr. Bergh had called into being the American Society, Mr. George T. Angell, of Boston, in 1864, had by his will provided that in case of his death a considerable portion of his prop- erty should be used for "circulating in the schools and elsewhere information calcu- lated to prevent cruelty to animals." The Massachusetts Society, however, founded by Mr. Angell, was not organized until March 31, 1868, the act of incorporation having been obtained from the legislature eight days previously. George T. Angell, who founded the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and the American Humane Education Society (this latter incorporated in 1889), was born in South- bridge, Massachusetts, June 5, 1823. Mr. Aiigell was educated at Brown Uni- versity and Dartmouth College. He AMERICA 47 was admitted to the bar in December, 1851. After some years of successful practice, he gave up his chosen profession and devoted the remainder of his life, to the ripe age of eighty-six, to the further- ance of the work of the two Societies of which he was, from the beginning until his death, the president and the guiding genius. To those who believe that underneath all this work of justice and kindness there lies a foundation of abiding faith in the eternal source of these virtues, there will be pleasure in reading the following from Mr. AngelPs Autobiographical Sketches: "At the close of the meeting at which the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was organized, Mr. Sturgis (just elected honorary secretary) went with me to my office underneath the hall; and with a deep sense of the great work we believed we had that day inaugu- rated, we knelt and asked God's blessing." ! It is not too much to say that from its inception this Society has been adminis- tered in a reverent fear of God and with unfailing faith in the Eternal Goodness. There is no doubt that Mr. Angell re- garded the work of the American Humane Education Society as one destined to have a vastly wider influence as time goes on 1 " Autobiographical Sketches," George T. Angell, p. 12. 48 THE HUMANE IDEA than is possible to any society that exists chiefly for the prevention of cruelty to animals. The present activities of this organization, and the outlook for its future as an educational force in this and other lands, certainly justify his opinion. "OuR DUMB ANIMALS" Mr. Angell also, in June, 1868, within a few months of the organization of the Massachusetts S. P. C. A., began the pub- lication of Our Dumb Animals, the first paper of its kind in the world. The cir- culation has grown remarkably from the beginning, until now it is nearly sixty-five thousand a month. That this paper has been one of the mightiest missionary forces in carrying far and wide into every nation under heaven the gospel of a large human- ity no one familiar with its character and history can doubt. Mr. Angell was also instrumental in the organization of the Illinois Humane Society. In 1870 he went to Chicago, engaged an office on Washington Street, and for the next four months labored in- cessantly, with the assistance of the Hon. John C. Dore and Edwin Lee Brown, for this purpose, the result being the forma- tion of that Society in the year 1871. Among the names forever to be associated with the Illinois Society is that of Mr. AMERICA 49 John G. Shortall, from 1892-1898 its honored president. It was to this courtly, distinguished, and accomplished humani- tarian that the writer of these words owes, more than to any other, his interest in humane work. Other societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals have followed from time to time in the several States of the Union until there are now something more than three hundred active organizations. Ap- proximately the number for the entire world, as nearly as can be determined, is eight hundred. THE BAND OF MERCY MOVEMENT The first Band of Mercy was organized in England, in 1875, by Catherine Smithies. Yet Mrs. Smithies was more than willing to share with Mr. Angell the honor connected with the organization of this remark- able movement that has spread almost, if not quite, around the world. 1 Mir. Angell had visited England some years before and while there had been very influential in arousing interest in various forms of humane work. Among the people he met was Catherine Smithies, who wrote him in December, 1875, referring to the Band of Mercy organization, "I do not 1 "Autobiographical Sketches," George T. Angell, pp. 36, 78, 82. 50 THE HUMANE IDEA forget that you were the means in God's hand of beginning the Ladies' Society, one fruit of which is the present one." In July, 1882, just as Mr. Angell was preparing for a campaign of humane edu- cation, and considering drawing up a pledge card for the children of the public schools, the Rev. Thomas Timmins, of Portsmouth, England, came to this coun- try. Mr. Timmins had been connected with the English Band of Mercy. His arrival seemed to Mr. Angell a veritable providence. For many days they con- ferred over the project of an American Band of Mercy which should be "different from anything that had preceded it. It should include all harmless living crea- tures, human and dumb. It should have its own pledge, badge, and card of membership." The badge agreed upon was a five- pointed star on which is engraved "Glory to God," "Peace on Earth," "Good Will to All," "Kindness to all Living Crea- tures." The pledge adopted was, "I will try to be kind to all harmless living crea- tures, and try to protect them from cruel usage." This has since been changed by omitting the word "harmless." Even a harmful creature one would protect from cruel usage, and if he destroyed it, would do it mercifully. Among the first to identify themselves AMERICA 51 with the parent band in Boston were the Governor of Massachusetts, the Mayor of Boston, the Roman Catholic Archbishop, Chief Justice Morton of the Supreme Court, and Wendell Phillips. Many other distinguished citizens also became mem- bers. At the end of the first year there were ninety-three organizations with about ten thousand members. At the present writing, 1912, there are 85,098, into which have been gathered something more than three million children. The vast influence of this work it is impossible to estimate. For thirty years it has been reaching the children of our public schools in every State of the Union. Hosts of these are now men and women. Temporary as the results may have been in many cases, there is no doubt that hundreds of thousands have felt the power of its spirit and that their attitude toward all sentient life has been changed by it. Steadily, year after year, it has been preaching its gospel of peace, brotherli- ness, kindness, and good will. How large a part it has played in arousing and foster- ing the peace sentiment in this country (it has always been protesting against war) no one can ever know. These Bands of Mercy exist now in nearly every civilized country of the world, and are in more or less direct commu- nication with the head office in Boston. 52 THE HUMANE IDEA Indeed the great work in Cuba, under Mrs. Jeannette Ryder, with whom we constantly co-operate, is carried on by her Band of Mercy. Within the past two years hundreds of these bands have been organized in Turkey, South Africa, Switzer- land, Bulgaria, Greece, and South America. THE AMERICAN HUMANE ASSOCIATION A word should be said about this organi- zation which is steadily becoming a larger factor in the humane work in the United States and Canada, and indeed in all the countries of the New World. Within ten years after Mr. Bergh and Mr. Angell and the Pennsylvania Society had started in their separate fields their varied activi- ties, the need was felt of the opportunity for conference by humane workers gener- ally, and particularly for the purpose of united action in securing proper national legislation. The first meeting for such a purpose was held Oct. 9, 1877, in Cleve- land, Ohio. It was at this time and place that the Association was formed. There were present, among others, John G. Shortall, Edwin Lee Brown, and Albert W. Landon, of the Illinois Society, Caroline E. White and Sarah K. Davidson, of the Women's Pennsylvania Society, Jos. L. Smith, of the Cincinnati Society, C. P. Montague, of the Maryland Society, AMERICA 53 Abraham Firth, of the Massachusetts Society, and R. R. Herrick, of the Cleve- land Society. 1 The idea of the Association was that of a federation of all the societies of the country whose end was the protection of children and animals from cruelty. It was believed that in an annual gathering of the representatives of these rapidly multi- plying bodies there would be furnished the opportunity for the discussion of questions of common interest, and that matters of a national character could be dealt with by such an organization much better than by the local societies. In one of its pamphlets its objects and methods are set forth in the following words: "The organization, assistance and encouragement of humane societies for the prevention of cruelty, especially cruelty to children and animals"; "The owning, manufacturing, making, publishing, buy- ing, distributing and giving away of humane books, papers, periodicals, tracts, pictures, lantern slides, medals and other things conducive to humane education." It desires it to be understood that its objects are "missionary and educational, and that it seeks in particular not to interfere with or conflict with any local 1 See annual reports of the American Humane Association. 54 THE HUMANE IDEA humane society. The American Humane Association, being incorporated under United States law, has no jurisdiction for the enforcement of state laws." Any anti-cruelty society in the land paying ten dollars or over is eligible to membership. Any individual paying five dollars or over is also eligible to a voting membership. The years that have followed have borne witness to the wisdom of the founders of the Association. From 1877 to the present it has held its yearly convention. Its headquarters are wherever its presi- dent resides. At present they are in Albany, N. Y., the residence of the dis- tinguished and widely known humani- tarian Dr. William O. Stillman, who has been president since 1905, and who is also president of the Mohawk and Hudson River Humane Society. 1 1 Literature and other information with reference to the American Humane Association can be obtained by writing the President of the Association at the above address. THINGS TO THINK ABOUT REFORM IN SLAUGHTER 1 1 Thine is a task of blood: discharge that task With mercy; let thy victim know No pain, but let the sudden blow Bring death, such death as thou wouldst ask" I T is next to impossible to bring these few pages to an end without a brief refer- ence to one or two subjects that are vitally connected with humane work. Next to humane education, which I think we are all agreed is the transcendent need of the hour, the most important and pressing duty that faces the philozoic societies of our country is to secure the adoption of such humane methods in the slaughter of our food animals as shall reduce their sufferings at the time of death to the minimum. The cruelties involved in the transporta- tion and slaughter of the more than one hundred millions of animals (not including 1 See articles on European abattoirs and slaughtering methods abroad by the author in Our Dumb Animals for August, September, and October, 1911. 55 56 THE HUMANE IDEA poultry and fish) that are annually killed for our tables beggar description. Not only for the sake of the animals, but in the interests as well of the public health, there is scarcely a greater reform called for today than the abolishing of our present ancient and inhuman methods of slaughter and the wiping out of the private slaughter-house, with its unnumbered opportunities for cruelty and the spread of disease through utterly unwholesome meat and unsanitary conditions, and the supplanting of all these chambers of torture and unlawful traffic in diseased meat by publicly built and con- trolled and scientifically managed abattoirs. Here is the supreme task and duty of the American humane societies of our time. We are as far behind such a coun- try as Germany in this respect as bar- barism is behind civilization. The larger animals, such as the bullock and cow, we grant, are generally stunned either by a blow which shatters the brain, or in some cases, by a bullet. The bleed- ing follows while the animal is, of course, unconscious. But wherever the Jewish method of slaughter is used, as it is wher- ever cattle are killed for the Hebrew trade, the animal is destroyed while in full con- sciousness and without previous stunning, by the use of the knife which is drawn deeply across the throat. Death ensues at last from loss of blood. This practice THINGS TO THINK ABOUT 57 involves much cruelty even before the knife is used. 1 The animal's feet are first made fast by chains or ropes, then it is thrown heavily to the floor by jerking its feet out from under it, then the head is pried back until the upper part of the face is flat upon the floor, and then the knife opens wide the throat. With the smaller animals, calves, sheep, and swine, the custom is almost universal among American butchers to kill with the knife without any attempt to render the animal first insensible to pain. So far as I can learn, in some instances calves are stunned before they are bled, but the common practice in small slaughter-houses with calves and sheep and swine is to haul them up by a hind leg, or with calves and sheep to hang their legs, tied together, over a hook and then to cut their throats. In our great packing houses calves and sheep and swine, herded in their several pens, are one by one jerked up by a chain fastened about a hind ankle, carried, thus suspended, by an overhead device, one after the other, down the line to where the butcher stands. As rapidly as he can thrust his knife into the throat he does 1 "Humane Slaughtering," a translation by C. Cash, B.A., p. 10. "Public Abattoirs and Cattle Markets," Oscar Schwarz, M.D., pp. 134 and 143. 58 THE HUMANE IDEA his part of the work; on they swing down the line, the blood pouring over face and eyes in blinding flood while they slowly bleed to death, struggling more or less violently with their waning strength. The explanation of the public indiffer- ence to this subject is doubtless to be found in the fact that the slaughter-house and all it stands for is something far re- moved from our daily life. We never see it. It^is seldom called to our attention. Few ever think of visiting it. Here and there will be found a man who, as a boy, followed his curiosity far enough to see some animal butchered, but the chances are that for years he has never given the matter a moment's thought. He sees the meat on his table, but there rises in his mind no picture of the shambles where the floors run red with blood; where men pursue their tasks with hands and cloth- ing crimson-dyed; where cattle, sheep, and swine struggle in the agony of death. The choice steak brings no vision of gaping throat and pleading eyes; the tender chop no suggestion of a lamb hanging by the leg and mutely bleeding to death. The sights and smells, the filth that is a part of the slaughtering pen, are as un- thought-of things as though they per- tained to the life of men in the jungles of Africa. And as for women who may be counted upon to champion almost every THINGS TO THINK ABOUT 59 righteous cause, here is a realm of cruelty they simply cannot enter to see with their own eyes. Few of them could endure the sight. Many a strong man who has forced himself to stand for a single hour amid such scenes, has gone away faint and sick at heart, resolved never to repeat the sad experience. The supreme goal we ought to set before ourselves as organizations seeking to pre- vent cruelty is: The requirement by law that every animal killed for food shall be first rendered unconscious by some method of stunning before the knife is thrust into its throat. After the last word is said about the ranchman and the railroad, about the callous drover, the butcher whose hands must drip with blood, the packer who grows rich out of his traffic, we come face to face with ourselves. But for us there would be no demand and no supply. Upon us, then, no less positively and heavily rests the moral obligation to do the utmost that is within our power to see that these victims of our appetite and desire are slain in what shall be to them as pain- less and merciful a death as the noblest humanity can devise. 1 1 See booklets and papers by the author, entitled "What Some People Eat," "The Testimony of the Camera," "An Indictment of the American Slaughter- house," and "Interstate Traffic in Calves." 60 THE HUMANE IDEA VIVISECTION We do not forget that it has been defended by men of the highest character by a Playfair, by a Pasteur. . . . But has not anti-vivisection a case, and a tremendous one f BBIEBLY WlTH reference to this important question, the scientific experimentation upon animals in the interests of medicine and surgery, this at least may be said, that our humane societies are sustained by people maintaining toward this serious subject various attitudes. There are those whose faith in their family physician and in personal friends who are physicians, leads them to say: "This matter I am content to leave in the hands of the phy- sicians themselves. I am willing to trust their judgment, confident that they are faithfully seeking the good of their fellows, that they are humane and worthy of my confidence." Others say: "This entire field of in- vestigation should be under the super- vision of the state. None but the most competent and expert should be entrusted with this right to inflict suffering upon, or to take the life of, any defenseless animal, and at all times the buildings or laboratories where vivisection is practised should be open to the inspection of state officials thoroughly qualified to judge THINGS TO THINK ABOUT 61 whether the laws with reference to cruelty are being violated or not." Still others there are, deeply interested in our cause, who are quite at sea amid the conflicting testimony that they are forced to consider. On the one hand reputable men affirm, and claim to prove, the inestima- ble advantages that have been derived for man from these experiments; on the other are the assertions of many, also high- minded, sincere people, who deny that any good ever resulted from the subjection of an animal to the experiences of the laboratory. In addition there is a large body of people, organized into active and aggres- sive anti-vivisection societies, who are the determined antagonists of the practice in all its forms, denying insistently that any gain for man has ever been derived from vivisection. With these there are others still who, whether they deny or not that good has come from animal experimentation, be- lieve we have no moral right to inflict pain upon any sentient creature for any purpose or end that is for man's advantage and not the animal's. Independently of the moral question involved, there are also those opposed to vivisection on the ground that, so abhorrent to them is suffering imposed upon the weaker by the stronger, that for no gain to themselves would they 62 THE HUMANE IDEA have an animal subjected to an experiment that caused it pain. Besides these there are not a few, ad- mitted in other things to be humane, and who contribute to societies for the preven- tion of cruelty to animals, who are per- suaded that the human race has derived a very positive good from investigations of this character, and are perfectly sincere in defending the practice within what they would call reasonable limits. Our regular societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals, as a rule, have not entered the controversy, leaving agitation and discussion of this subject largely to organizations making this their special mission. The Directors of the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, though representing various con- victions with regard to this important question, have felt themselves warranted, in speaking for the organization, to take the position that all such experimentation upon animal life should be performed only by thoroughly trustworthy experts, and that all places where such experiments are carried on should be open to inspection by such state officials as are competent to judge whether the anti-cruelty laws are or are not being violated. There can be no question that the medi- cal profession must make good its claim, THINGS TO THINK ABOUT 63 beyond controversy, to have attained by vivisection unmistakable benefits for mankind, or in the end the public con- science will demand its abolition. We believe we may go farther and say that unless this claim can be sustained, the great body of physicians themselves would be among the first to join in the demand. 1 THE ETHICAL SIDE When at last in the ever-branching series the complete human being is produced, it knows at once its kinship with all the other forms. EDWARD CARPENTEB WASHINGTON GLADDEN re- marked, years ago, in an address to which I listened, that this whole question of man's relation to the animal world had, so far as he could learn, been left untouched by our writers on ethics. He declared he had searched in vain through all the books 1 The following quotation from an address made in Boston, March 14, 1912, by President Lowell to the Har- vard Club is significant. Speaking of a distinguished physician, he says: "Yet I think I am not mistaken in saying that half of you do not know that his name is Theobald Smith. Now I refer to him because, before he left (for Europe), he told me that he believed more was to be learned today by studying the natural diseases of animals than human diseases artificially induced in them." 64 THE HUMANE IDEA on ethics in his library for any recognition of the rights of the lower orders of life. This, if we remember correctly, was before the publication of "Practical Ethics" by President William DeWitt Hyde, of Bowdoin College, in which our duty to animals, the virtue and reward of kindness to them, and the vice of un- kindness with its inevitable penalty are outlined. "Kindness," he says, "recog- nizes this bond of the kind, or kinship, as far as it extends. Kindness to animals does not go so far as kindness to our fellow-men; because the kinship between animals and man does not extend as far as kinship between man and man. So far as it does extend, however, kindness to animals treats them as we should wish to be treated by a person who had us in his power. Kindness will inflict no needless suffering upon an animal; make no un- reasonable requirement of it; expose it to no needless privation." Frederic Harrison, in an address en- titled "The Duties of Man to the Lower Animals," also says: "I regard man's morality towards the Lower Animals to be a vital, and indeed fundamental part of his morality towards his fellow-men. I refuse to treat it as an extra, an appendix, or finishing touch superadded to our ethical creed. I do so, because I do not know what Ethics can THINGS TO THINK ABOUT 65 mean, if it be not the due ordering of our own complex nature (a large and indis- pensable part of which is animal) towards the vast organic world in which we find ourselves." 1 In the same volume G. W. Foote quotes the following from Schopenhauer: "The unpardonable forgetfulness in which the lower animals have hitherto been left by the moralists of Europe is well-known. It is pretended that the beasts have no rights. They persuade themselves that our conduct in regard to them has nothing to do with morals, or (to speak the language of their morality) that we have no duties towards animals; a doctrine revolting, gross, and barbarous, peculiar to the west, and having its root in Judaism." 2 Modern ethical science for the future must surely give larger consideration to this long-neglected field of thought. The bond of kinship between man and the other animals is too close and vital to draw a hard and fast line and say, Here the moral begins and the unmoral ends. "Evolution," writes so sane, scientific, 1 "The New Charter," published by the Humanitarian League, London. 2 "The New Charter," published by the Humanitarian League, London. 66 THE HUMANE IDEA and scholarly an author as Brierly, "has lowered our pride of exclusiveness. Our boasted reason is not a monopoly. Ants are reasoners. Bees invented the hive. The new-discovered closer relation is forc- ing itself into our theology. It troubles it at all points. It is so difficult to define where animal ceases and man begins, why wonder at the difficulty of showing where man ends and God begins? In the ques- tion of sin, too, no theologian of the future will be able to discuss the problem without study of the animal consciousness and the unseen something, the sense and volition which guide an animal in life and depart from it at death what relation has that to the unseen something in us which in like manner directs our life and shares this fate of death?" 1 Men like Romanes shared in thoughts like these. That there is something in the creatures below us that death does not end has been the conviction of not a few of the world's great and good and wise. Such names as Luther, Wesley, Cowper, Southey, Shelley, Keble, Kingsley, Dean Stanley, and Agassiz occur to one as among this number; even Plato is in- cluded in them, and Bishop Butler says: "Death removes them from our view. It destroys the sensible proof which we had 1 "Life and the Ideal," J. Brierly, p. 237. THINGS TO THINK ABOUT 67 of their being possessed with living powers, but does not appear to afford the least reason to believe that they are then or by that event deprived of them." 1 To Darwin it was an "intolerable thought" that these creatures with all their capacity for devotion, affection, loyalty, and suffer- ing should suffer total annihilation at death. There are multitudes, as knowledge of life's mysteries slowly widens, to whom this thought is also "intolerable." It is incredible to many who have been the re- cipients, for example, of some dog's un- failing affection, that anything so akin to the love that is at the heart of the uni- verse, can be blotted out. It is a part of the things that are best, and that ought to persist. The man or woman who has never asso- ciated intimately with these lowly friends will not understand it cannot under- stand it. Dogs and horses no more than children open their hearts to those who do not love them. Think of what the following incident means to one who has studied and loved these orders of life below us. Edgar Quinet says that on one occasion, when visiting the lions' cage in the Jardin des 1 "The Analogy of Religion,'* chap. I, "Of a Future Life." 68 THE HUMANE IDEA Plantes, he observed the lion gently place his large paw on the forehead of the lioness, and so they remained grim and still all the time he was there. He asked Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, who was with him, what it meant. "Their lion cub," was the answer, "died this morning." Personally, I must frankly say, in face of the misery, agony, the unrequited, patient toil, that make up so much of the lives of my lowlier fellow-creatures, that unless somehow, somewhere, I believed there was for these my humble brethren in the universal kinship of life, an evening of the scales that deal with the great reali- ties of right and wrong, my moral nature could never be at peace. We work and hope and trust in the faith of him who says: "That nothing walks with aimless feet; That not one life shall be destroy'd Or cast as rubbish to the void, When God hath made the pile complete." BIBLIOGRAPHY A HE first list of books and authors that follows is reproduced from Mr. Henry S. Salt's "Animals' Rights," Macmillan & Co., 1894. He says he has not "attempted to give a complete bibliography of the doctrine of Animals' Rights, but merely a list of the chief English works, touching directly on that subject, which have come within his own notice." The Fable of the Bees. By Bernard de Mandeville, 1723. Free Thoughts upon the Brute Creation. By John Hildrop, M.A., London, 1742. A Dissertation on the Duty of Mercy and Sin of Cruelty to Brute Animals. By Humphrey Primatt, D.D., London, 1776. Disquisitions on Several Subjects. By Soame Jenyns, 1782. Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. By Jeremy Bentham, London, 1780 (printed 1780). The Cry of Nature, or An Appeal to Mercy and Justice on behalf of the Perse- cuted Animals. By John Oswald, 1791. A Vindication of the Rights of Brutes. London, 1792. (Attributed to Thomas Taylor, the Platonist.) 70 BIBLIOGRAPHY A Philosophical Treatise on Horses, and on the Moral Duties of Man towards the Brute Creation. By John Lawrence. Two Vols., London, 1796-1798. On the Conduct of Man to Inferior Animals. By George Nicholson, Man- chester, 1797. An Essay on Humanity to Animals. By Thomas Young, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, 1798. Moral Inquiries on the Situation of Man and Brutes. By Lewis Gomportz, Lon- don, 1824. Philozoia, or Moral Reflections on the Actual Condition of the Animal Kingdom, and the Means of Improving the Same. By T. Foster, Brussels, 1839. The Obligation and Extent of Humanity to Brutes, principally considered with Ref- erence to Domesticated Animals. By W. Youatt, London, 1839. A Few Notes on Cruelty to Animals. By Ralph Fletcher, London, 1846. Some Talk about Animals and their Masters. By Sir Arthur Helps, London, 1873. Man and Beast, here and hereafter. By the Rev. J. G. Wood, London, 1874. The Rights of an Animal , a New Essay in Ethics. By Edward Byron Nicholson, M.A., London, 1879. A Plea for Mercy to Animals. By J. Macawley, London, 1881. BIBLIOGRAPHY 71 The Ethics of a Diet, a Catena of Authori- ties Deprecatory of the Habit of Flesh-eating. -By Howard Williams, M.A., London and Manchester, 1883. Our Duty to Animals. By Philip Austin, London, 1885. Argues against animals' rights. The Duties and the Rights of Man. By J. B. Austin, 1887. We add, besides these, the following: History of European Morals. By William E. H. Lecky, M.A., 1869. Vol. I, 166, note 244, 280, 288, 307. Vol. II, 161, 162, 166, 168, 172. Humanitarianism: Its General Prin- ciples and Progress. By Henry S. Salt, London, 1893. Animals' Rights, considered in relation to Social Progress, By Henry S. Salt, New York and London, 1894. The Place of Animals in Human Thought. By Contessa Martinengo - Cesaresco, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1909. Life and the Ideal. By J. Brierly, London and Boston, 1910, Chapter on Our Poor Relations. The Humane Movement. By Roswell C. McCrea, New York, 1910. Prepared on the Henry Bergh Foundation, Colum- bia University. The Animals 9 Cause. London, 1909. 72 BIBLIOGRAPHY Manual of Moral and Humane Education. By Flora Helm Krause, Chicago, 1910. The Universal Kinship. By J. Howard Moore, Chicago. The New Ethics. By J. Howard Moore, Chicago. Public Abattoirs and Cattle Markets. By Oscar Schwarz, M.D., London, 1903. American Meat. By Albert Leffing- well, M.D., New York and London, 1910. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFOHm. RETURN TO the circulation desk of any University of California Library or to the NORTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY Bldg. 400, Richmond Field Station University of California Richmond, CA 94804-4698 ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS 2-month loans may be renewed by calling (510)642-6753 1-year loans may be recharged by bringing books to NRLF Renewals and recharges may be made 4 days prior to due date DUE AS STAMPED BELOW APR 2 2 1993 KB 66175