Correspondence

Feilding Star, Volume XIII, Issue 28, 3 September 1891, Page 2

Correspondence

EABLY SHEAEING. TO THK EDITOR OF THE STAB; Sir, — As the world grows older, ancf education softens men's minds, so do their' t tastes alter. The gladiatorial shows, the* ' bull and the bear baiting, the cock fighting; of other days would disgust tte now. We* are becoming more and more humane in our treatment of animals. Calves are not bled slowly to death in order to get" white veal. Cattle are killed more quickly thai* ,by the 'old-fashioned pole-axe." Criminals are to be despatched in a moment by electricity, There is yet another advance' to make in our treatment of those animals^ that before their shearers are dumb. We* should steadfastly set our' faces againstthe practice of early shearing. If sheepare shorn now, just imagine the tortures'' they have to endure during the chilly nights we naturally expect for another" month yet, at any rate till the groundloses its winter's coldness. Last week there were frosts r snow is still lying low down on the hill&perhaps if will freeze again?" nest week, yet it i* said shearing willcommence in some sheds next week. • Letanyone who may read this throw off hisouter garments some chilly' evening^ or' his blankets some frosty sight, that woul<£ give a faint idea of what our useful dumb" friends feel when robbed of ttieir coats atthis season of the year. Think of the* tens of thousands of Napoleon's army' dying from cold when retreating from? Moscow, and of our army in the Crimea r of Bourbaki's French in the Swiss Alps. Bead about Sir Thomas Wyatfs sufferingsfrom the chill of bis dungeon, or of Latude in the Bastille r of the horrors of the 4 dreadful chill going through the frame,-- --' and freezing the very marrow ot the bones,, and then think that sheep snfler the sameagonies when newly shorn and their bare i skins exposed to the' wintry blast,.' or a t frosty night. We hear occasionally of ' hundreds dying through" a- sudden fall in the temperature when? newly shorn.. 1 '. Those i people I instanced could express* • their feelings, so we know it'iffaEtrue^ It is most likely that graziers who shear > in such a time as this do not think that a - 1 sheep's feelings are the same as those K. have mentioned. I trust that educationwill still further enlighten some- of pur 1 old-fashioned farmers, they may then see they lose in pocket as well as in iiumanity- > — I am, &c, F. W. Whibi«ez,,.-