Ill 



CAPTIVE ANIMALS 



THE IMPEOVEMENT OF THE Zoo. 



Your article headed "The Improvement of the Zoo/' 

 in the Spectator of November 23 is a piece of valuable 

 criticism on the points I have raised. It will be read with 

 sympathy by all who care to bring unbiassed judgment 

 to bear on the question. Without wishing to discuss that 

 part of the article with which I have less agreement, the 

 latter, will you allow me to emphasize two points that 

 may have received inadequate expression in my circular? 

 First I am aware that the funds of the Society admit of 

 only gradual improvements in its premises in Eegent's 

 Park. But I hold very strongly that sooner than there 

 should be any part of the Gardens that may rightly be 

 called "slums," it were better that many genera and 

 species should be entirely unrepresented in the menagerie. 

 Secondly, I wish it to be clearly understood that I bring 

 no charge of incompetence against the Council. All I 

 wish to do is to point out that the present condition of 

 the Gardens is not in accord with modern ideas. May it 

 not be that in the Zoological Society, as in more important 

 institutions, the machinery of government is to blame? 



M. DAVENPOET HILL. 



November 30, 1901. 



NOTE. Purely as a matter of abstract ethics, abolition, 

 I think, is the ultimate logic of the Zoo. Animals have 

 committed no crime against the community, and therefore 

 the community has no right whatever to give them life- 



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