AN APPEAL FOR THE ANIMALS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 131, 27 October 1914, Page 7

AN APPEAL FOR THE ANIMALS

A STIRRING ADDRESS. BY THE VICAR OF ST. MARY'S, At St. Mary's Church on Sundav evening the Rev. A. H. Colvile, M.A., eloquently pleaded the cause of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, taking for his text Romans 8:22, "The whole creation groaneth and travailcth in pain together until now." 110 said: PUBLIC OPINION. It has been the custom in England for some time past, at least in many parishes, to set apart certain Sundays in the year and to confer on them a special personality which the Church Calendar lias not done. Easter, Whit Sunday, Trinity and so on—these are distinctive, landmark Sundays which always must mean something great for every true Christian. But these "new Sundays," j as one might term them, are quite tin- , authorised and unrecognised by the Catholic Church, though sanctioned and approved by many individual bishops. They are used for a delinito purpose in response to modern ideas and modern demands. Citizen Sunday, Hospital Sunday, and, the latest of all, Animal Sunday, are the three best- known, and it tins last that we recognise to-day.

-1 have said that these Sundays have come into existence, so to speak, in response to public opinion, and the best pubiic opinion in Jiiig:and has of late years set itself more firmly and unmistakably against the wanton and careless ill-usage of animals, and has emphatically demanded a more humane and sympathetic treatment for them. it seems strange to think that loss than a. century ago, in 1822, the first modest little liill for the prevention of cruelty to horses was presented to the House of Commons, and contemptuously rejected amid laughter, which must closely have resembled the ciackling of thorns under a pot. There was at that time no public opinion 011 the subject and no education. Children and animals, and, indeed, all weak things, suffered terribly in the first half of the late century. The craze for money-making left them exposed to the most brutal exploitation by those who should have been their protectors.

THE CHURCH'S DUTY. To-day ivd can thank God things are better. 'Much good work for animals has been dono by the 'Press; much good work by the R.S.I'.C.A., which has not only brought ollVuders to book, but has given help and encouragement to numbers of private persons in their elforts to put down cruelty and relieve unnecessary suffering. What work has been done by the Church? Nothing to what ought to have been done—certainly not in this country, llow many clergy have told me that they consider it a waste of time to preach even one annual sermon on the subject! "Our duty," they say, "is to preach the Gospel and save men's souls. We can't bother about the animals." Eight! And is not this part of the Gospel—to protect the weak and champion the helpless and see that justice is done? Aye, and to save men's souls through love, love for all created things, and by stamping out the devil' ol cruelty that warps and soddeus a man's whole nature.

AX 1 MAI SCX DAY. I have 110 hesitation in paving that so far from bi'in<>- beneath our notice lit this tiino of stress and strain, it is just at this ti:!■ <> that "Animal Sun holds a special thoughtful, wpat"m tif tuxl inm;;ii.st i.v people. Man is already trwrn ii.!.»*t-uy in debt to the animal erc.'.t'o.n. I. r generations the, noblest animals !;a e been tho servants and he'.pi r-\ t'i? friends and comrades of man. <!;> 1 La-; given them to man for this very purpose, and every gift of God 'brings with it responsibility. Wo cannot think that God would have put annuals in subjection to man without at the same time making man responsible for their well-being. Grant that animals exist for the good of man: that does no* mean that man may ruthlessly exploit them, and repay their faithful service by cruelty and abuse. Animals are very largely at the mercy of man, unable to assert any rights or claims, unable to form combinations or unions to protect themselves. helpless and defenceless, an 1 yet (lod's creatures as nv are, and the nv.in who deliberately abuses them commits the most detestable si:i both against his own nature and against the Father and Creator of till.

MAX'S RESPOXSIHiI-ITY. "The who'e creation groaneth and tnivaileth in pain together." for how much of that pain is man himself responsible? llow often have the sufferings of animals weighed lighter than a feather in tho scales, when set against a few miserable pounds that man can make out of their pain? Thank God the conscience of England has been rous- > ed on this matter, and one degrading j method of money-making—the shipping | of worn-out horses to the Continent— , has been stopped l)v Parliament, while ; the reform of slaughter-houses has 'been I taken in hand, and the performances of ' trained animals—trained by cruelty—j has fallen into discredit. May that soon i happen hero! Again, how often has) fashion demanded the wanton destruction of bird life so that women, who cannot bear to witness with their own eyes an act of cruelty .may complacently wear the plumes and feathers of ran■birds recklessly and cruelly slaughtered ? Here again, the English Parliament is interfering to protect bird life from the rapacity of men and the silly vanity of

women. CRUELTY OF SPORT. How often, again, have animals been made to suffer unnecessarily in the saered name of sport? When I was at Oxford an organisation came into being calling itself tho "Sporting League." It purported to ho a league to protect English sport from puritanical attacks. It's real object was to buttress up such "sports" as pigeon-shooting, the coursing of hares, and the hunting of 'halftame stags turned out of a cart, and was largely engineered by betting men in their own interests. An eiTort was made to get respectable sportsmen to join this precious league. Many leading athletes in Oxford were circularised with a view to establishing a branch of it at the University. The promoters appeared to think that undergraduate sportsmen were silly enough to believe that cricket, football and rowing were also threatened by the puritans. The attempt was a complete failure. I remember speaking against the league at' a debating society, and on the samei , gide were found bucli well-known sports-' men as C.. B. Fry, P. F. Warner, and the

I then captain of the Tiiigbv football fifteen, J. Conway Hues. The truth is that real men and real sportsmen hate and detest cruelty, and the readier you are to give and receive hard knocks yourself tho greater is your natural loathing of cruelty inllicted 011 weak and defeneelesH creatures in the name of sport. Sport lias been very greatly humanised since the days of bear-baiting »nd cock-fighting. Pigeon-shooting, by tho way, lias been abolished at Ilurlingham.

j But there are oilier cruelties in conlicction with what is called sport the abolition of which hy law will soon, 1 believe, bo demanded by an educated public, and one of the mont glaring of these abuses of sport is the coursing of hares in enclosures as is sometimes practised in this country. Hares are brought from another part of the country, let out upon land they do not know, and in dazed and terrilied condi- , tiou are hunted by greyhounds under ; circumstances which give them no chance whatever of escaping. llarecoursing under these conditions is bar-, barous and wanton cruelty, and is , simply used by those who practice it as a vuhicle. for betting. Jt is one of those things that the real sportsman, equally with the humanitarian, would be thankful to see abolished. My friends, we cannot deny that if "the whole creation groaneth' and travailetli in pain," man is very largely responsible. and, as I have said, it is just at this time that an appeal for the animals should come home to you with a force and power far greater than any words of mine can convey. The appeal is focusscd, summed lip in that one word, "together," just as our hearts aic touched and torn by the knowledge of the terrible sorrow and suffering that is everywhere darkening human lives today; as the groaning of our fellow-mem strikes on our ear, and the tears and travail of women, and the bewildered grief of little children bring to us a sense of fellowship in suffering, so, too, wo can naturally let our sympathy extend to the animals who are siill'ering with man and for man to-day by reason of this fearful war. I will not harrow your feelings by attempting to describe the ihorrible suffering of horses on the field of battle, but I would remind you once more of that word "together." The horses sharo the danger qf the men, and suffer with them. The gun has to be tplaced in position, and men and horses face the enemies' bullets together. Ihe bugle is sounded for 11 cavalry charge, and nun and horses rush across the bullet-swept ground upon the bayonets together, llore ignorant and innocent than the most obscure private 'soldier, less responsible for the war than the poorest citizen, our horses bleed and suffer and die upon the field of battle —and have we no word to say for them, no honor to 'bestow, no pity to give? Here is a tribute written by a 'New Zealand poet 011 the horsea that fell in the South African war:

Their bones lie glistening on the veldt, their shoes are rusted red. They are gone where spur and rifle are at rest. Good dreams to all that legion of the blind, obedient dead, Good pasture in their islands of tbe blest. Knowing nothing of the combat, recking notihing if they won, When the echoes of the last shot died away, They are dreaming of the far-off bush, and creeks anil shade and sun, And the gallops at the breaking of the day. When the mob breaks through the timber do the stockmen never sie'i? ' Do their hearts in idle pipe-dreams never yearn For our horses in their loirj:-s!eep where we sent them cut to die To an exile past retrieval and ret:::"i. | Their bones lie glistening on (lie veldt. ; their rhoes arc rusted red, They are gone where spur and rille are I at rest, I Good dreams to all that legion of the I blind, obedient dead, > | Good pasture in their islands of the blest. Let their suffering plead to-day for all the animal creation, so that as we thankfully acknowledge our fellowship with God, as we readily recognise our fellowship with man, we may not forget our fellowship with them. In suffering j we remember it. May we then through j suffering rise to that (manifestation off our sonship to God, the great mark of ' which is that we love "both man and bird and bi'ast," and show ourselves "merciful as our Father in heaven is merciful."