NOVEMBER 253 



flowering is commonly thought to depend on well- 

 ripened wood in the previous season, especially on trees 

 and shrubs which flower on the old wood. Rhodo- 

 dendrons do so, yet they are crowded in a very unusual 

 measure with next year's flower-buds, both the Hima- 

 layan species and their many hybrids. 1 



LIX 



The conviction and fining of a fish-hawker in 

 Ilfracombe for cutting off the tail-end of a .^g crue i ty 

 conger eel before the creature was dead sug- of docking 

 gests sundry reflections on the uncertainty of H 

 our penal code. Apart from the difficulty of putting 

 to a merciful death an animal so tenacious of life, it is 

 not easy to determine the moment when death takes 

 place and consciousness ceases, owing to the life-like 

 contraction of the muscles after death, which continues 

 in eels for some time, even after the head has been cut 

 off. If the humble fish-hawker of Ilfracombe be held 

 to have received no more than was due for his act, 

 there are numbers of people in far better circumstances 

 who get off with a good deal less. Chopping chunks 

 off a living eel may be reprehensible enough, but it is 

 not the cause of a tenth part of the suffering caused 

 by the practice of docking horses, which prevails very 

 generally, and with perfect impunity to the perpetrators. 

 The present fashion, which decrees that hunters, 

 hackneys, and polo-ponies shall have shorter tails than 



1 The display in 1908 was very fine (though early blossom was 

 ruined by the terrible frost at Eastertide), but it was far excelled in 

 1909. 



