538 
ward, The humanity you shall extend 
to the lower creation will come abun- 
dantly round «in its consequences to the 
whole human race. The moral sense 
which this law will awaken and incul- 
cate, cannot but have a most powerful 
effect. upon ovr feelings’ and sympathies 
for one another. The violences and out- 
ages committed by the lower orders of 
the people, are offences more owing to 
want of thought and reflection, than to 
any malignant principle ; and whatever, 
therefore, sets them a-thinking upon the 
duues of humanity, more especially where 
they have no rivalries nor resentments, 
and where there is a ‘peculiar generosity 
in forbearance aiid ‘compassion, has an 
-evident tendency to soften their natures, 
and to moderate their passions, in their 
dealings with one another. 
“The effect of laws-which promulgate a 
sound moral principle is incalculable ; I 
have traced it in a thousand instances, 
and it is impossible to describe its value. 
‘My Lords, it was in consequence of 
these simple views, and on those indis- 
putable principles, that I have framed 
the preamble of the very short Bill which 
¥ now present fora second reading to the 
House. I might, without preamble or 
preface, have proposed at once to enact, 
if not to declare wilful and wanton cru- 
elty to the animals comprehended in it to 
he a misdemeanor, looking, as I nowdo, to 
the Commons to ‘enforce the sanction of 
the law by pecuniary | penalties. But 
then the grand efficacious principle 
would ‘have been obscured; which, if 
fortunately adopted by your : Lordships, 
will enact this law as a spontaneous rule 
in the mind of every man who reads it— 
which will make every human-bosom a 
sanctuary against cruelty—which will ex- 
tend the influence of a British statute 
beyond even the vast bounds ‘of British 
jurisdiction ; and consecrate, perhap s, in 
all nations, ‘and i in all ages, that just and 
eternal principle, which binds the whole 
living world in one harmonious chain, 
under- the dominion of enlightened man, 
the lord and governor of all. 
I will now read to your Lordships the 
preamble as, I have framed it.” 
‘« Whereas it has pleased Almighty 
God to éubdue to the dorhinion, use, and 
comfort of man, the strength and facul- 
ties of many useful animals, and to pro- 
vide others for his food; aud whereas the 
abuse of that dominion; by cruel and op- 
pressive treatment of ‘such animals, is 
not only highly urijust and immoral, ‘bat 
most pernicious in its example, having an 
Lord Erskine’s Speech on Cruelty to Animals. : 
[Jaly ly 
evident tendency to harden the heart 
against the natural feelings of humanity.” 
This. preamble may. be objected to as 
too solemn and unusual in its language ; 
but it must be recollected, that the sub- 
ject of the Billis most pecaliar and, un- 
usual; and ‘it being impossible to ‘give 
practicable effect to the principle in its fall 
extent, 1t became the more necessary, 
in creating a duty of imperfect obliga= 
tion, where legal restraints would’ be in- 
efficacious or impossible, to employ lan- 
guage calculated to make the deepest i im- 
préssion upon the human mind, so’ as to 
produce, perhaps, more than the effect 
of law, where the ordinary sanctions of 
law were wanting.. 
It may be now asked, my Lords, why; 
if the principle of the Bill be justly un- 
folded“ by this” preamble, the, enacting 
part falls so very short of protecting the 
whole animal world, or at all events 
those parts of it which | come within the 
reach of man, and which may be sub-' 
ject to’ abuse. ‘Fo that I answer—It 
does protect them to a certain degree, 
by the very principle which I have been 
submitting. to your consideration, and to 
protect them further, would be found to 
be attended with insusmountable difficul- 
ties, and the whole bill might be wrecked 
by an impracticable effort to extend it. 
But I shall be happy to follow others in 
the attempt. The Bull, however, as it 
regards all animals, creates a duty of im- 
perfect obligation ; aud j your Lordships are 
very well aware, that there are very many, 
and most manifest and important moral 
duties, the breaches of which human laws 
cannot practically deal with, and this I 
fear will-be found to be the case in the 
subject now under consideration. | 
‘Animals living in a state of nature — 
would soon over-run the earth, and eat 
up and consume all the sustenance of 
man, if not kept down by the ordinary 
pursuits and destruction of them, by the 
only means in which they can be ‘kept 
down and destroyed; and it is, remarka- 
ble, that other animals have been formed 
by "Nature, with most manifest instincts 
to.assist us in this necessary exercise of 
dominion; and, indeed, without the 
act of man, these animals would them- 
selves prey upon one another, and thus 
be visited by death, the- inevitable lot 
of all created things, in more painful 
and frightful shapes. They have, be- 
sides, no knowledge of the future, and 
their’ end, when appropriated fitly for 
our food, i is without prolonged suffering. 
This economy of Providence, as.it. re- 
gards 
