Women’s Work in Many Spheres

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 188, 29 October 1927, Page 8

Women’s Work in Many Spheres

Mrs. A. Gladys Kernot TJEADERS of the literature of these Southern lands are well acquainted with the work of Mrs. A. Gladys Kernot, whose thoughtful poems and prose first wandered into “The Triad,” in those far-off Dunedin days and held an honoured place there throughout the Mortonian regime. Other Australian periodicals still get her work and THE SUN can claim her as one of its earliest contributors.

Though only a small proportion of her verse has dealt with the animal world, she is the same Mrs. Kernot whose work for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is eloquent proof how earnest has been her sympathy:

For tamed and shabby tigers And dancing dogs and bears. And wretched blind pit-ponies x, And little hunted hares.

Pet week which to-day draws to a close marks the conclusion of the first year of the Auckland S.P.C.A. as an independent organisation. The year has been very successful and Mrs. Kernot believes that some day will see the establishment of a Pets’ Home which will save many deserted dogs from wandering the streets until their career is closed by the

“humane killer” and the City Council destructors. And some day, for who knows in this humanitarian age? we may even see a travelling veterinary clinic to alleviate the sufferings of our dumb friends.

There is need in New Zealand, says Mrs. Kernot, of a more sensitive appreciation of the woes of the animal world. “Cruelty is met at every turn. Quite an erroneous idea is commonly held that the day of burdened beasts is over and that they are diminishing in numbers. But that is not so. There are 80,000 horses in Auckland Province alone. Yet we have onlyone inspector—we should really have three or more. It’s the cruelty in the country that is hard to get at, though the police are helping us more now and the Press and the Education Board are also very helpful.”

A campaign in the schools like the “humane education,” which is part of the syllabus of the American system, would be a very great help. “Not long ago,” said Mrs. Kernot. “I had a letter from England, inquiring how we managed our ‘humane education’ in this country and I had to answer

regretfully that we hacl no such thing—but that we were hopeful of improvement. “Such an interest in animals in the schools would help to bring the idealisation of the kinship of all animal life. How different it would have been if Darwin had been able to announce the affinity of man and dog—without dragging in ugly gorillas,” she mused.

One likes to feel that though Mrs. Kernot finds New Zealanders as a whole rather indifferent there is ground for hope that a more sympathetic insight into the animal world is dawning and that the great barrier of species is dissolving before it. Humane feeling then will end the torture of our draft animals and dogs and the senseless murder of the pigeon and sparrow-shoots. New Zealand, so well favoured by Nature, should render its thanks in kindness to those fine, faithful comrades of the dumb world. —H.I.M.