MEANS OF PREVENTING CRUELTY 269 



are they regarded and how slightly felt by multi- 

 tudes professing to be Christians. 



Like other important truths and duties, men ac- 

 knowledge them, but they make little impression 

 on their hearts. Such a demoralizing effect of cus- 

 tom and familiarity with evil, and the frequent 

 abuse of power, and practices of the most odious 

 nature, which, if witnessed for the first time would 

 excite our terror, are daily beheld and committed 

 with the most heartless insensibility. 



There is nothing more demoralizing to any peo- 

 ple or country than the inhuman and barbarous 

 practice of sporting at the expense of animal life. 

 Man is the only animal on earth which kills for 

 fun, and in this respect is the meanest creature God 

 ever made. What are such amusements as cock- 

 fighting, dog-fighting, bull-fighting and pigeon-shoot- 

 ing but sports which are disgraceful to a civilized 

 people, fitted to foster the most baleful passions, 

 and to harden the heart against the calls of hu- 

 manity ? 



What a peculiar sport it is to see animals harassed 

 with perpetual terror, brought together and com- 

 pelled to fight a foe made so by man, and to witness 

 the struggle of death, and man shouting the louder 



