112 DISGRACEFUL CRUELTIES. 



catching them, as they can, by the neck ! And 

 there can be no doubt that the horribly pleasing 

 process of roasting a goose alive, as detailed by Dr, 

 Kitchiner, in his Cook's Oracle, a book invaluable, 

 equally to the gourmand and the economist, was ac- 

 tually practised in former days. Indeed, we have 

 proofs innumerable, and utterly disgraceful to this 

 enlightened nation, of the absolute necessity of 

 amending the enthusiastic and indefatigable Martin's 

 Bill, and rendering it completely comprehensive. 

 It would have the effect of teaching men to think 

 and feel, and to be convinced of the horrible and 

 unnatural error of deriving pleasure from the racked 

 and tortured feelings of other animals, endowed with 

 feelings similar to their own. The present writer, 

 upwards of thirty years since, led the way to the late 

 Lord Erskine's and Mr. Martin's Bills ; indeed was 

 then, so far as he is informed, the first practical writer 

 on the subject. 



A writer in the Monthly Magazine, December, 

 1823, remarks humanely on the cruelty of plucking 

 the living goose, proposing a remedy, which I should 

 rejoice excedingly to find practicable and effective. 

 He remarks on the additional torture experienced 

 by the poor fowl, from the too frequent unskilfulness 

 and want of dexterity of the operator generally a 

 woman. The skin and flesh are sometimes so torn 

 as to occasion the death of the victim ; and even 

 when the fowls are plucked in the most careful 

 manner, they lose their flesh and appetite ; their 

 eyes become dull, and they languish in a most piti- 

 able, state, during a longer or a shorter period. 



