Books in Review 
he had no particular love for animals 
(and actually hated cats), was ap- 
palled at the way animals were abused. 
He was also impressed by the high 
social status of the RSPCA, and in 
1866 he recruited New York’s leading 
citizens to form the American Society 
for the Prevention of Cruelty to Ani- 
mals. Dues were set at a high $10 
a year, which only the well-off could 
afford. Other cities quickly followed 
this example. In Boston, a self-made 
lawyer named George Angell gained 
the social standing he longed for by 
his prodigious work in the local so- 
ciety. Philadelphia women, who were 
not allowed to hold office in that city’s 
society, formed their own and virtually 
took over the protection of four-footed 
Philadelphians. The groups were not 
democratic, but they got things done. 
The richness of Reckoning with the 
Beast lies in the way Turner relates 
the beginnings of the animal welfare 
movement to other social forces of 
the times. It was linked, both in its 
impulses and the people it involved, 
to a new Victorian temper, an em- 
phasis on compassion that was “part 
and parcel,” says Turner, “of the sep- 
arate bundles of worries, ideas and 
emotions” brought on by the stunning 
succession of political, industrial, and 
scientific revolutions. The same re- 
formers who fought to abolish slavery 
I- and the exploitation of child workers 
also fought to stop cruelty to animals. 
But for most people who joined the 
movement, kindness to animals was 
a comfortable middle-class cause — an 
outlet for compassion that did not in- 
volve politics, as abolition did, or in- 
vade family rights, as child protection 
might. It provided, says Turner wryly, 
“relief from the internal discomforts 
involved in digesting fundamental so- 
cial changes.” And when the doctrines 
of Darwinism “raised disturbing ques- 
tions about people’s own animality, 
compassion helped quiet them.” 
Compassion was inevitably diluted 
by the Victorian genius for sentimen- 
tality. “Educate the hearts of the peo- 
ple and the heads will take care of 
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