936 
EDITORIAL OBSERVATIONS. 
is the facility which they afford for properly packing a small 
cargo of animals in a vessel which is capable 6f accommodat- 
ing a large number. 
Instances of the employment of unnecessary violence in 
getting animals off the ship, or the infliction of pain in mere 
wantonness, enormities of which we have read, but which it 
has seldom or never come within our province to witness, can 
only be dealt with as they arise ; and the suggestion which 
was made by a writer in a daily paper a fortnight ago, to 
appoint an officer of the Humane Society to attend every 
landing place, in order to exercise some wholesome super- 
vision over the men engaged in the work of landing animals 
is a good one, although its adoption would involve con- 
siderable outlay. 
A great deal has been done, and much more is being 
attempted, to lessen the hardships of the sea voyage, but it 
is hopeless to expect that cattle and sheep, or, for that 
matter, men and women, can be rendered proof against the 
miseries of a rough passage. The cost of transit again is 
a serious element in the calculation, even when human 
beings are concerned; in the case of oxen and sheep it is 
invariably a thing of the last importance. If people must 
live on beef, mutton, and pork at something under a shilling 
a pound, it will be useless to suggest improvements in the 
methods of conveyance involving the bringing of fewer live 
animals to this country or, what is the same thing, increasing 
the cost of transit. If our argument seem to bear the appear- 
ance of an apology for the infliction of pain on the plea that 
people must eat meat, we must accept the consequences, even 
should they take the form of the cruelly cold retort of the 
Trench judge, who when the criminal endeavoured to excuse 
himself on the ground il faut vivre , bitterly replied, Je ne 
voit pas la necessite. 
