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222 AfETHODS OF SOCIAL REFORM.
trivial amusement seema to excite no corresponding feeling at
all P Why is the country agitated with disgnst at the report
of s cock-fight, or a combat between a man and a dog, or the
electrifying of a horse, while the newspapers send their special
correspondents to India to describe the achievements of our
future emperor in sticking pigs ?
It might seem indispensable, in treating a question of this
sort, to lay down eome char definition, showing what is cruelty
end what is not; but any attempt to reconcile popdar sentiments
with a singlo definition of the term will ntterly fail.
To inflict pin for the ploasuro of inflicting it, is unquestionable
and malignant cruelty. To inflict pain negligently, and mithout
any adcquate mot,ivc, as when a butcher, habituated to the
slaughtering of animals, pays little regard to the shortening
of their last agonies, is also cruel. But it mould not seem that
the infliction of pain is always regarded as a necessary
ingredient of cruelty. A large part of the public strongly
condemns tho prnctice of pigeon-shooting as a cruel and
brutal amusement. But a bird when fairly shot dies instantsneously,
without time to feel pain, and when the business
is properly conductod no bird need be left in pain for
mor0 than a very brief time. But there can le no doubt
whatever that, in shooting wild birds and rabbits, a large
proportion of tho animals are painfully wounded, and yet
escape beyond tho reach of the sportsman. TVyndham, in a
remsrh-ablo speoeh which ho made in favour of bull-baiting,
asserted that in shooting there were ten birds wounded for
one bird killed. I should think, or at least hope, that this is an
immense exaggeration; iu the absence of any data I will
WSUmQ that, for ten birds or rabbits killed outright, there
iE, only one painfully wounded. Nom we can hardly suppose
that the number of birds and rabbits shot annually in this
kingdom is less than thirty millions, and we arrive at the
fearful result that, to say the leaat, three million animals
are painfully mangled yearly, partly to supply food, but
mainly to afford amusement to the wealthy. Let US grant,
for the sake of argument, that only half of these animals
oonld be taken painlessly by n0t.s. Then we mnst allow that