THE TIM BUNKER PAPERS. 193 



winter poor and tbin, and this cow having the drain of 

 milk upon her system grew thinner through the summer. 

 The winter diet of corn buts, bog meadow grass, and salt 

 marsh hay, cut short the work of starvation, and fulfilled 

 Tucker s prophecy. 



They have a great variety of names for this process of 

 torture in Connecticut, and I suppose in other parts of 

 the country. Sometimes it is horn-ail, or worm in the 

 tail ; again it is slink fever, or murrain, black leg, or black 

 tongue, cattle disease, or pleuro pneumonia. It would not 

 do for an intelligent, civilized man to see and believe that 

 he starved his cattle to death. Conscience might trouble 

 him, and possibly some of his neighbors might have him 

 before the courts under the statute which prohibits cruelty 

 to brutes. If I were called to judge in such a case it 

 would certainly go hard with the offender. It certainly 

 inflicts more pain upon a brute to starve, than to beat it. 

 The whip upon ribs well lined with fat is a sharp torture 

 soon over. But to keep a cow at the stack-yard through 

 the cold, stormy nights of winter, to give her poor food, 

 and not half enough of that, is a lingering torment, more 

 cruel than that which the savage inflicts upon his victim 

 bound to the stake. The poor beast can only speak 

 through the hollow ribs and the bristling hair, and these 

 signs of woe are usually attributed to disease rather than 

 to a lean manger. 



This is an evil that legislation will not reach, and I sup 

 pose nothing but public opinion will set it right, and that 

 probably not in our day. It would seem that there was 

 no need of losing neat stock under ordinary circumstances. 

 I have kept cows for over forty years, and they have all 

 died by the knife, proving as useful and ornamental in 

 their deaths as in their lives. The starving of animals is 

 so unprofitable that there is no apology for it. A half- 

 starved cow hardly pays for her keeping. A well-fed one 

 pays a handsome profit. 



