THE EDUCATIONAL HUMANE SOCIETY 



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works as "Beautiful Joe," "Black 

 Beauty," "The Strike at Shane's," "A 

 Dog of Flanders" have been translated 

 into Japanese. One popular writer of 

 fairy tales writes and lectures along 

 the line of kindness to animals, and his 

 influence among young children is very 

 great because he has endeared himself 

 to those little ones with his other 

 stories. A young and earnest friend 

 of animals has organized a children's 

 Band of Mercy in Tokyo. He is lec- 

 turing to the children of his neighbor- 

 hood from his sick bed. There are 

 some daily papers and magazines that 

 pay special attention to our subject and 

 write often to promote kindness to ani- 

 mals. In the police force, in the army, 

 among teachers and professors and 

 writers — almost every circle in society 

 — there are some preachers of our gos- 

 pel to extend the kingdom of love and 

 mercy. 



The President of the Parent Society 

 at Tokyo is a Shinto Priest, Baron 

 Senke, ex-Minister of Justice, and its 

 two Vice Presidents are a Buddhist 

 Preacher and a Christian ex-M. P. In 

 this way, animals are teaching men of 

 diverse religious opinions to work har- 

 moniously together for one common 

 cause of humanity. A well-known 

 jurist is our legal adviser and among 

 the most distinguished promoters we 

 find such names as Count Okuma, 

 Baron Kanda, Baron General Fuku- 

 shima, ex-Minister of Education Saw- 

 ayanagi and so on. The President of 

 the Yokohama branch of our Society is 

 Governor Baron Sufu, and that of the 

 Kobe branch Governor Hattori. En- 

 rolling the services of these distin- 

 guished persons as officers of our Soci- 

 ety helps to dissipate the foolish no- 

 tion that it is a maudlin sentimentalism 

 to make much fuss about lower ani- 

 mals. A third branch has sprung up 

 at Shimoda through the earnest efforts 

 of a Buddhist priest. This place is 

 well known in Japanese history in con- 

 nection with Commodore Perry's expe- 

 dition to open our country to Western 

 intercourse and commerce. It goes 

 without saying that we owe much for 

 the founding of these humane societies 

 to the direct and indirect assistance 

 and encouragement of American, Eng- 



lish and German friends of animals, 

 either in Japan or at home. 



Memorial services were held for the 

 horses killed and wounded in our wars 

 with China and Russia, and a Budd- 

 hist priest is traveling all over Japan 

 to raise funds for erecting a monument 

 to the memory of the war-horses lost 

 in our recent national struggle. His 

 idea is to set up in a suitable place a 

 statute of a horse with the Buddha of 

 Mercy, Kwannon, on its back. The 

 author of "Human Bullets" (its Eng- 

 lish translation published in Boston 

 and London), a most sanguinary story 

 of real experiences of a young army 

 officer in that horrible siege of Port 

 Arthur, has told to his readers a sol- 

 dier's tender feelings toward the most 

 faithful of all animals, perhaps except 

 dogs. 



Fortunately we have abundant ma- 

 terial, both in history and in literature, 

 from which we can tell stories and 

 stories to children in nurseries, kinder- 

 gartens, and schools to illustrate our 

 inborn kindness and sympathy toward 

 the dumb creation. Just to name a few 

 instances, our 16th Emperor and his 

 queen consort banished a man to a dis- 

 tant island for slaughtering a deer to 

 offer the venison to their majesties. 

 This animal had lived not far from 

 their palace in Osaka and been accus- 

 tomed to entertain them with its 

 nightly calling. This compassionate 

 act took place before Buddhism was 

 brought to our shores, and before Con- 

 fucianism had hardly time to humanize 

 our ancestors. About fourteen hun- 

 dred years ago, our 29th Emperor dis- 

 tinguished a man by appointment to an 

 important post in his government, be- 

 cause he had been brave enough, and 

 good enough to save the life of a wolf 

 that had been fighting with another. 

 This humanitarian Emperor's daugh- 

 ter became our 33rd sovereign. This 

 gracious Empress thought that hunt- 

 ing, which was one of the court func- 

 tions of the Emperors, was not becom- 

 ing her sex, and instituted gathering 

 medicinal herbs in the fields with her 

 ladies-in-waiting and other court dig- 

 nitaries. And the herbs thus collected 

 were given to the government dispen- 

 sary for the good of the sick. From 



