PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO ANIMALS. 725 



and what exposes them to like sufferings from another quarter, they possess the same instincts 

 with our own species. The lioness robbed of her whelps causes the wilderness to ring aloud 

 with the proclamation of her wrongs; or the bird, whose little household has been stolen, 

 fills and saddens all the grove with melodies of deepest pathos.&quot; 



Aside from a practical and humane standpoint, there is still another consideration of 

 vital importance involved in the subject of kindness to animals, and that is, its reflex influ 

 ence upon the character of individuals and society at large; for not only are animals kindly 

 treated more valuable and useful every way, but the inauguration of a system of humane 

 treatment of the brute creation has a wonderfully refining and elevating influence upon man 

 kind. For this reason, children should early be taught to be kind and considerate to all dumb 

 animals, for this will aid vastly in establishing correct principles of justice and honor that a 

 child who is permitted to witness and practice cruelty to inferior orders of creation can never 

 possess. The &quot;Bands of Mercy,&quot; that are being formed all over the country, enlisting chil 

 dren in their ranks, are exerting an influence in the right direction that can never be 

 computed. 



The efforts made by Mr. Angell, President of the Massachusetts Society for the Preven 

 tion of Cruelty to Animals, in endeavoring to make it an established law that it be the duty of 

 all teachers in the public schools to teach their scholars to protect insect-eating birds and their 

 nests, and treat all domestic animals kindly, is an example worthy of imitation, and if such a 

 law could be adopted in every State in the Union, the educating and refining influence that 

 would be the result, would indeed be surprising! Besides the enforcement of such a law, 

 societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals should be established in every city and 

 town, not only as a refining and elevating element among the people, but better still, as an 

 active organization for the prevention of cruelty. 



History states that the tyrant Domitian, while a mere infant, foreshadowed the evil 

 character that afterwards terrified and horrified the world, in his love of cruelty to flies and 

 other insects by tearing off their wings and legs. It is said that Louis XIII of France 

 when a child once crushed beneath his foot a little tame sparrow that took refuge in his 

 bosom, and that the good king his father, Henry IV, seeing the cruel act, exclaimed to the 

 queen, &quot; Wife, I pray that I may outlive that son, else ho will be sure to maltreat his 

 mother.&quot; It is well known that the prediction was verified, and that Marie de Medicis died 

 at Cologne at the age of eighty-six, exiled and reduced to the extreme of misery by this son. 

 At the siege of Montauban, he who was the cruel child, now a mature man and a monarch, 

 stood fiendishly by and mimicked the dying contortions of his Protestant prisoners. Surely 

 the child is typical of the man, and if humane influences can modify and form the plastic 

 mind and character of the child, much good can be accomplished to the world. On the other 

 hand, brutal and unkind treatment witnessed or produced by the child or older persons has a 

 hardening, brutalizing influence, the education being in an opposite direction. Pigeon 

 shooting, as practiced in many localities, is extremely cruel and brutal. 



A recent writer in commenting upon a pigeon-shooting match, in which several caged 

 pigeons were let loose one at a time to be shot at, says: &quot; There is something in the pleasures 

 and perils of the chase which appeals to that spirit of adventure which has its home in the 

 breast of the boy, and which the mature and sober citizen rarely succeeds in subjugating and 

 suppressing. The pursuit of the nobler varieties of game is a school of courage and 

 endurance, and steadiness of nerve. The heroic element does not manifest itself to any 

 inspiring degree in the slaughter of the more timid birds and animals; but, after all, the 

 shooting of so-called game birds is only following the strong and irrepressible instinct inherited 

 from a barbarian, and, perhaps, a quadrumanous ancestry. Of course it is an unequal contest; 

 but when the game is pursued on its own ground, where it enjoys every opportunity for 

 concealment or escape, and when the generous sportsman so far recognizes the rights of the 



