Facsimile PDF - Online Library of Liberty

228 METHODS OF SOCZAL REFORM.
to constitute cruelty almost entirely. It is not the knowledge,
in D logical sort of way, that pain is needlessly and wantonly
inflicted upon the lower animals which excitm popular indignation,
otherwise why does the sporting spirit meet with approval
rather than disgust ? Cruel actions, according to popular
estecm, are simply those which bring the fact and intensity
of pain too much before the imagination. It is something in
the same way that we are more affected by hearing of one man
killed half a mile off, than of ten thousand people perishing
in nn unknown part of China or South America.
The smm perplexing differcnco of sentiments will be
found to occur ngain as regards the rat-catching business. It
is well known that thoro is n regular trade in live rats, which
aro caught in cage-traps, and then supplicd at regular market
prices to dog-fnncicrs, mho want either to train young ratting
dogs or to exhibit the powers of their pets. A great many
peoplo would call this traffic in rat,% a base, cruel thing;
but this can hardly be on account of physical pain caused to
t.he rats. They can suffer but little in the cage-traps, and a
skilful ratting-dog disposes of a rat at a single toss. The
mtue people who would denounce the cruelty of ratting never
bestow n thought upon those dreadful serrated steel traps,
actuated by n powerful spring, which catch the unhappy
animnl by any part of his body-head, t,runk, legs, or tailwhich
llnppens to be within reach. Often must an animal
caught in such a trap suffer for hours, and even for days,
torments quite equal to those of the vivisection table without
chloroform, the pangs of hunger being superadded. In these
days of inventive progress it would be very easy to devise
traps mhich would kill rats and mice instantaneously and with
certninty. If the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
Animals hns offered prizes for the invention of such traps, or
hns taken any steps to reduce the immense amount of pain
caused ly the present traps, such efforts have not come to my
knowledge.
Turning now to the Report of the Royal Commission on
~'ivisection, my own impression is very strong to the effect
that no abuses of the practice of any importance have been