IRature IKlotes : 
^Ebe Sclborne Society's flDaoastne 
No. 84. DPXEMBER, 1896. Vol. VIE 
THE FALSEHOOD OF EXTREMES. 
ROM time to time we receive communications calling 
our attention to some harrowing form of cruelty which 
is perpetrated on some race of the animal creation. 
In many cases there is unfortunately only too much 
ground for the complaint ; and no one will accuse us of having 
failed to comment with suitable indignation upon the barbarities 
involved in the wearing of “ospreys” or “aigrettes,” or in the 
preparation of sealskin. According to some, indeed, our short- 
comings have lain in an opposite direction ; one of our most 
valued correspondents, for e.\ample, has taken us severely to 
task for having criticized the wearing of “ospreys” by mem- 
bers of the Royal Family — on the old principle, apparently, that 
what is “ flat blasphemy ” in the ranks becomes but “ a choleric 
word ” when adopted by the officers. 
We have, however, for some time felt the necessity of 
entering a protest against the unsubstantiated, and indeed 
inaccurate, paragraphs which appear from time to time in the 
daily press and elsewhere, and of saying a word upon the 
unauthenticated accounts which we receive from correspon- 
dents. No cause is advanced by exaggeration ; and the aims of 
Selbornians are likely to be endangered by it. 
An admirable illustration of this kind of thing in its most 
intense form is furnished by the sensational statement regarding 
horses and leeches, which appeared in a letter by Mrs. Hadden, 
published early in the year in the daily press, whence it was 
copied into the weekly papers, and so distributed broadcast 
throughout the English-speaking world. Briefly, it stated that 
worn-out horses were imported to Bordeaux, where they were 
driven into the swamps to be devoured by the leeches, which 
were cultivated there in large quantities for the French market. 
