ANIMAL WELFARE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24420, 4 October 1940, Page 4

ANIMAL WELFARE

TO THE EDITOR

Sir, —As it is Animal Welfare Week and we are particularly asked to give thought to our dumb friends I am writing to draw your attention to the following. I notice that at an event in aid of the Queen Carnival there is to be a draught horse derby, which to my mind is an act of thoughtless cruelty. These noble creatures are not used to the environment and handling they will of necessity receive, their lives being totally different from the ordinary hack or racehorse, and their pace being invariably uniform. A human wheelbarrow race instead of this item would be far more edifying and “amusing.” Also I notice with anger another inducement to persuade

our citizens to do their duty m regard to the rehabilitation of our soldiers when they return from the job of stamping out Hitlerism or cruelty. I refer to the Queen Carnival prize of a child’s pony, complete with whip. Could a proud Nazi father better that? The irony of it is that it is advertised during Animal Welfare Week. Why not cut out the whip and substitute a set of rules on management and kindness instead. A horse is one of God’s noblest animals and I can state from experience over many years that with kindness and understanding a whip is unnecessary, and definitely so for a child, into whose hands the emblem of chastisement should not be thoughtlessly placed. We hear much of its use from Nazi Germany. One of our harmless feather friends met a cruel and wanton death at the hands of some of the rising generation in our city recently. A case for the whip, surely!— l am, etc.. For the Voiceless. Oct. 2.