CRUELTY TO ANIMALS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 21, Issue 524, 8 July 1949, Page 5

CRUELTY TO ANIMALS

Sir,-In a partially disinterested way I have been followigg the weekly cor_Tespondence. on cruelty to animals. However, a recent letter by N. M. Bell has provoked this reply. Mr. Bell says that "The real cruelty done to animals ... is the ruthless slaughtering in the prime of life of weaker living beings solely for the benefit of the slaughterers."’ One is led to the conclusion that the author is a strict vegetarian whose pets (which we assume a writer showing such benevolence to the lower animals must have) are forced to ransack garbage tins in order to obtain théir normal diet of meat. One can’t help congratulating Nature for showing considerable forethought in providing our fellow vegetarians with at least one commodity, milk, which does not necessitate the wilful murder of the donor. Further thought would show that N. M. Bell’s home would not contain any useful byproducts of the slaughtering industry such as glue, soap and frying fat (anyway, there wouldn’t be anything to fry except, fish and eggs). No ‘Jeather volumes would grace the bookshelves, and your correspondent’s shoes would probably be shod with ersatz leather. He says that "the slaughter-house is the greatest blot on human civilisation." Perhaps he would prefer a population of bovines and porcines roaming the land under the benevolent gazes of our friends, the vegetarians. I fail to see how the fatalistic philosophy of this correspondent regarding the future social suicide enters the discussion of the strong killing the weak: The point at issue is whether or not primary produce sh6uld be used for the maintenance \of the community. I would say that there appear to be no indications that the familiar red and blue striped carcasses (so beloved by Sam Cairncross and Rembrandt) will disappear from our sawdust-strewn shops for many years.

CORPUS DELICTI

(Dunedin).