ANIMAL WEEK

Evening Star, Issue 22460, 3 October 1936, Page 2

ANIMAL WEEK

[Written by Panache for the ‘ Evening Star.’] B e are superior to all other nations, and within our own nation we of this century are superior to all our ancestors. This shows in tho modern refinements of cleanliness, in hot baths, and in the perfection of the electric water supply. It shows most of all in our nice feelings about animals. It is a long time since wo baited bears, and now. foreigners visualise England as one vast animal sanctuary, England whoso inviolate Sea keeps out all those hastyminded foreigners with tin cans to tic on puppy dogs’ tails and rough saddles to wear holes on horses’ backs. “ Good old England!” says someone in Galsworthy—“ Good old England! Horses and dogs! ”

Shelley tells how he mot on Byron’s staircase at Ravenna five peacocks, two guinea hens, and an Egyptian crane. There also walked about the house eight dogs, five cats, an eagle, a crow, and a falcon—evidence that Byron, in spite of his hyacinthine curls, his Scottish ' ancestry, and his Continental morals, was at heart a true Englishman. Tho eight dogs, lurking in the background, cancel tho peacocks and admit Byron to the book shelves. It is disconcerting, on the other hand; to read that it was the Emperor Caligula, no Englishman, who invited liis horse to supper, gave him wine to drink in cups, and set golden barley grains before him to oat; and it was only the Emperor’s sudden death that prevented him from fulfilling his promise of making the horse a Consul. It is disconcerting, too, to remember that Arabs loved their steeds, and that the Androcles who bound up tho lion’s paw was a foreigner. It is incredible that a flock of geese saved from tho enemy, not the Tower of London, but the Capitol in Rome. The Englishman who is devoted to his dog is rewarded by seeing himself magnified in that adoring gaze; but so disinterested were the Ancients that they could bear with unreturnod love. Pliny records tho case of a man who asked so little that he loved a fish. A certain orator, he says, had a fish pond near his house, and “ took such an affection to one lamprey in that pool that when it was dead he could not but weep for love of it.” This began a fashion, for the lady who inherited tho fish pond fell for another lamprey, and doted on it so that she even hung round its gills earrings of gold. ",

.Nearer our own times Englishmen have kept strange and unconventional pets. Sir Thomas Browne writes to hisson about the treatment of his “ ostridgo.” He exhorts the boy to be specially careful because of the return' of the- cold weather, warning him that ostridges, bred in a hot country, would not have seen snow before, or very seldom;, and. therefore, must, bo kept; under cover and have straw to sit upon and water set near by day and night. The-bird'.was to be tempted by a worm, oh'ft’-Very" small eel; irivited to drink niilk; - and, .if jt , refused salt, to be offered an olive.

Cowper kept a hare as a pet, not for the ehase; but he was a poet and a mad. Gilbert, White had a pet tortoise, but he was a naturalist and a great humorist.. Dickons kept a pet raven, “ a knowing card of a bird ” ; but he had as well two Newfoundland dogs and a St. Bernard. When an Englishman talks of animals, it is usually understood that he means dogs. Yet devotion to dogs did n~t originate in England. Publius had a “ beloved little hitch ” on whom Martial wrote an epigram, ami a picture was made of her that death might not take her altogether from her master’s sight. Tlio English attitude to dogs was sufficiently marked in 1570 for tho author of a ‘ Treatise of English Dogges ’ to protest against “ these kind of people .who delight more in dogges that are deprived of all possibility of reason than they do in children that he capable of wisdom and judgment.”

'Tho same writer speaks scornfully of the little puppies that are borne in the bosoms of their mistresses, succoured with sleep in their beds, nourished with meat at their tables, and allowed to lick the lips of dainty dames as they ride in their carriages. Since those observations were made in 1570 clogs have gone from strength to strength, their privileges increasing. But recently their sports have been censored. In town, where their opportunities were necessarily more limited than in the country, their liberty has been further curtailed by tho insistence of municipal authorities on the leash. No longer are dur hearts toiichcd by the spectacle of a free dog entering a ban tugging at his master’s trousers, and leading him home. Not again shall a free dog lollop across the road to rescue a child from the wheels of a motor car.

Ami now the clog lias a new enemy in .the Health Act. Dogs are not permitted on these premises. This is very hard on dogs, for with dogs, as with children, education is not a preparation for life. Take, for' example, meals. For several years Children are instructed how to behavo at table. They arc told to keep their elbows off, to hold spoons in the right hand, not to smell their food, not to talk with their mouths full, not to ask for what is not on the fable, not to bring to dinner a book or even a comic. When children grow up sufficiently to cat in restaurants they .find all these rules broken, even, butter knives neglected, and diners flourishing like green bay trees. With dogs the introduction to the world is not so .happy. At homo tho puppy cats what lie likes. He puts his paws on the tablecloth and is admired. Ho licks the baby’s rusk, and the baby gurgles with approval before putting a small tongue where the dog’s has just rested; and neither dog nor baby is any the worse. But out in tho world Englishmen's dogs, though leashed, may not sniff tho sawdust inside the butcher’s swing door, or nose among the heads and taijs under tho fishmonger's counter. And yet tho grocer’s cat sits smugly on In's counter; and in the greengrocer’s window a tabby curls among the Brussels sprouts.