KIDD'S OWN JOURNAL. 



273 



HUMANITY AND INHUMANITY. 



The heart is hard in nature, and unfit 



For human fellowship, as being void 



of sympathy, and therefore dead alike 



To love and friendship both— that is not pleased 



With sight of animals exjoying life ; 



Nor feels their happiness augment his own. 



Cowpee. 



HE PRETTY COMPLIMENT, MY 



dear Sir, which you paid me 

 in the March number of Our 

 Journal, bears internal evi- 

 dence of your classing me 

 among your especial favorites. 

 It would be an affectation 

 otherwise to interpret your 

 remarks, — for sincerity of heart is the basis 

 of your character, as all who read what you 

 say will aver. This being the case, I have 

 pleasure in forwarding you a little communi- 

 cation suited from its nature to your pages. 



I must first tell you, that it is grounded on 

 some excellent remarks which appear in an 

 essay by Harry Hieover, entitled " Bipeds 

 and Quadrupeds," of which a reviewer thus 

 speaks :— " The country gentleman who keeps 

 a carriage-horse, the farmer who has a team, 

 the lady who has a palfrey, the sportsman 

 who follows the hounds, the livery-stable 

 keeper— will one and all save in pocket by 

 purchasing the cleverest of all Harry 

 Hieover's books." 



Its dedication, to the late Duke of Beau- 

 fort, and the author's popular nom de guerre, 

 at once indicate the humane and kindly, as 

 well as manly spirit which pervade the book. 

 It has yet another grace, being written at 

 the suggestion of a lady. For the practical 

 information I must refer your readers to the 

 book itself, making only such selections as 

 relate more immediately to the habitual 

 cruelty with which animals, whose sagacity, 

 docility, and beauty so largely contribute 

 to our comfort and enjoyment, are all but 

 universally treated ; — cruelty it is most 

 painful to contemplate, not alone as regards 

 the suffering animal, but as indicating the 

 innate savageness of the human being. 



There are sensitive ladies who u do not 

 wish to know, or like to hear" of the 

 cruelties practised. They are compassionate, 

 no doubt ; but it is principally to themselves. 

 Their nerves are shocked, naturally enough, 

 at the revolting details ; but, so long as they 

 are left in happy ignorance, the atrocities 

 they shudder at may continue, without any 

 effort on their part to check them. " Many 

 a lady who would turn away in horror from 

 seeing a fowl's neck broken by her cook, 

 would with great glee commend ' the shot ' 

 who brought down the pheasant or par- 

 tridge." 



While ladies smile approbation at the 

 hero of the day's " sport," sporting men are 

 not likely to discern cruelty ; especially 



Vol. V.— 18. 



when gentle ladies see none. Their example, 

 in turn, is not lost upon gamekeepers, 

 grooms, and others ; and the effects of 

 habitual cruelty prevailing amongst this class 

 of persons, is frequently enough demon- 

 strated in their treatment of their wives and 

 children, and in acts that would disgrace a 

 savage. 



Go where we will, though perhaps in a 

 less degree than among ourselves, money 

 sets at defiance, more or less, the breach of 

 love, friendship, honor, kindness, and, in 

 bitter truth, honesty itself. To the love of 

 gain we may attribute the leading cause of 

 so much cruelty to animals as is daily shown 

 by man. It would afford me much pleasure 

 could I show that, in all and every case, the 

 owner of an animal suffers in a pecuniary 

 way by ill-using him. Could I do so, 

 neither I nor any other person need write 

 another word on the subject. No law would 

 be required to punish brutality, no police to 

 prevent its infliction, no commendation for 

 the absence of it. Interest would at once 

 effect that which neither law, shame, nor 

 eulogium could produce. 



I have frequently heard a somewhat 

 singular hypothesis brought forward in excuse 

 for unkindness towards the brute creation ; 

 namely, " they were sent for our use." Let 

 man in his arrogance and self-sufficiency 

 keep in mind — that if, on his formation, 

 his Creator blessed him, He also blessed the 

 fowls and the beasts after be had made them. 

 Shall man then dare to hold, or presume to 

 think, that their wants and comforts are 

 beneath his notice? Let him, with all his 

 real and self-imagined superiority, call to 

 mind, when he ill-uses the less-gifted denizen 

 of the world, he is abusing a creature that 

 has been blessed, in common with himself, 

 by the same Omnipotence that created and 

 fashioned both. 



I imagine, that the leading causes of 

 suffering to animals are the four following : — 

 First, as "the head and front " of offences 

 of this kind, come the cupidity and avarice 

 of man. Secondly, the want of knowledge 

 of what really does occasion suffering. 

 Thirdly, a morbid and contemptible vanity, 

 which often produces the infliction of suffer- 

 ing from a desire to show the superiority of 

 the animal we possess, or our own, in what 

 we can do in or with him. Lastly, and let 

 us hope more rarely, from a mind devoid of 

 the common feelings of humanity. 



It were idle to suppose that the man who 

 is wanting in humanity to one class of living 

 beings, will be humane to any other. He 

 who is a brute to the brute, will be the same 

 in all his relative duties in life. He will 

 be brutal as a husband, brutal as a father, 

 and brutal as a friend, — for his mind is 

 brutal. Boys, we know (for wc daily see it), 



