EUTHANASIA. 



THE change from this scene of existence to the next is usually 

 heralded by suffering and pain, insomuch that dying has come 

 to be regarded as the extreme of calamities. 



Usually the animated machine clogs, and in mid-career is 

 disarranged, then struggles before coming to the pause which 

 is death, long before the component parts of it are so far 

 worn or altered as to be unfitted to the functions of vitality. 



Few of mankind can be said to die of old age pure and 

 simple; fewer still of non-human animals. Disease or vio- 

 lence or accident precipitate commonly the issue. For man, 

 disease is the normal rule of death, violence and accident the 

 exception. For non-human animals, conditions are reversed ; 

 comparatively few die naturally. In fish the chances in favour 

 of natural death sink to the lowest level. Fish eat each 

 other without compunction, heedless of consanguinity or spe- 

 cies similarity. 



Violent death may well be called the natural death of 

 fishes ; and perhaps this way of going out of the world in 

 their case has important consequences in nature's economy. 

 If terrestrial animals were to die naturally and to remain 

 unburied, the atmosphere would soon become so contami- 

 nated, that no living creature could long breathe it and live. 

 It is known that putrefactive decomposition takes place in 

 fresh water at least as readily as it does in air ; and although 

 the saline materials of sea-water do check putrefaction to 

 some extent, yet they are not in quantity sufficient to prevent 

 it wholly; wherefore the cannibal propensities of fish may 

 be a wise provision of nature for keeping the waters pure. 



