GENERAL TREATMENT. 329 



and vices, enjoying "with him a community of moral and 

 mental constitution. 



8. Their vices are too frequently the direct or indirect 

 product of man's neglect or bad usage. 



9. Their diseases, mental as well as bodily, which resemble 

 in their nature those of man, arise from causes that are in 

 great measure preventible by him. 



10. They confide in and look up to him as a superior 

 being ; a being of greater power, with the ability to afford 

 protection or assistance in time of need. 



11. They are both inoffensive and dependent. 



They have, therefore, as Bentham, Helps, and other 

 authors have pointed out, their decided rights and wrongs at 

 man's hands, while man has a still more distinct responsi- 

 bility and duty as regards his relation to and treatment of 

 them. To many of them for long and faithful service he 

 is under heavy debt or obligation. 



To a certain extent, but only to a comparatively most 

 limited extent, man has fitly exhibited his recognition of 

 the claims or rights of subject animals, and of his own duty, 

 responsibility, debt, or obligation to them. He has done so 

 in a multitude of ways which it seems desirable to enu- 

 merate, mainly with a view to give them publicity, in order 

 that they may be imitated on the larger scale until they 

 become general. Man has paid public or private testimonies 

 or tributes of respect to animal virtues; he has signalised their 

 length or fidelity of service, or the peculiar character of their 

 service ; he has marked his own gratitude, inter alia, in the 

 following ways, or by the following means : 



1. The provision of refuges or homes, retreats, asylums, 

 for the hosts of stray, cold, homeless, hungry, destitute dogs 

 that frequent the streets of our large cities. There is one 

 such well-known ' home for lost dogs * at Battersea, London. 

 There is also a ' shelter ' for dogs in Philadelphia, U.S. ; 

 and there is an asylum for houseless cats at Florence ; but 

 there should be at least one such shelter, for one or more 

 animal species, in every large town. 



2. The provision of similar asylums for the aged and 

 helpless, the infirm and decrepit, the old pet dogs, horses, 



