NOT SO EDUCATED!

Radio Record, 17 June 1938, Page 15

NOT SO EDUCATED!

There Is Still A Crusade To Be Waged Por Cruelly Treated Animals

Special to the "Record"

by

A.R.

M.

VERY now and then the radio-which devotes a surprising amount of time to good works when you come to tot up-gives a brief talk or a briefer appeal on behalf of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. The S.P.C.A. has been so long with us, however, that no one pays very much attention to it. Like Poppy Day, it is a sort of institution at which people nod pleasantly and say, "Keep up the good work. We’re with you. ... Next time the radio gives an animal talk, listen a little more carefully. The day is by no means gone when animals can depend for humane treatment solely on an "educated" public. Perhaps you are not aware of it, but within recent months a man in the province of Wellington wired his pigs’ ears over their eyes so that they could not see to get through fences. A bullock-driver broke the tails of every animul in his team by savage twisting, and he pushed their eyes in! A farmer killed his Jersey cow for meat by shooting it (inaccurately) with a shotgun, and sawing its throat open with a knife.

So much for an "edueated" public! These revolting cases are from the books of Mr. R. A. Nicol, sole inspector of the S.V.c.A. in the Wellington province, You may ask why, if such things happen, the offenders are not brought before the courts. Where possible. they are. Prosecutions

are taken whenever the inspeector can produce sufficient evidence to warrant court actions, but the collection of such evidence, clear and unshakeable, is difficult. Cruel masters, like murderers, seldom act in the presence of witnesses. When witnesses are avuilable they are often reluctant to be mixed up in court cases. In the case of cruelty to the wounded cow, Mr. Nicol applied to the authorities for permission to secure the evidenee on commission of two witnesses who had moved to a distant part of the North Island. This was refused, T’ would sometimes appear that the S.P.C.A. receives more discouragement than encouragement in quarters from which it has a right to expect every support. There would appear to exist on the part of certain magistrates a disinclination to convict in cases which the society considers clear-cut and serious ; or, if couvictions are entered, the penalties are often trivial and in no way proportionate to the offences. Certainly, judging by reports of repellant and repeated offences, fear of the

Bench cannot be said to exercise any substantial influence in our communities, in so far as animal welfare is concerned. In England it is different. There the magistrates display a very jealous regard for the part they play in the enforcement of provisions for the protection of animals. In one recent year 1794 persons were convicted on charges of cruelty to animals, 50 being sent to prison. [NCIDENTALLY, there is an admirable provision in the English law that is unfortunately missing from

the New Zaland Act. kt is that which gives magistrates the power to deprive persons convicted of cruelty to animals of their licences to own animals. This disqualification may range from @ short term to life. For instance, I recently read in an English newspaper that, "for failing to give

é proper care and attention to a dog, 2 woman was sentenced to one month’s hard labour, and was disqualified for life from, keeping a dog." It is a regrettable fact that New Zealanders, from a practical standpoint, lag well behind Britain and several foreign countries when it comes to organised animal welfare, In the Dominion the S8.P.C.A. does noble work in the face of heavy odds, chief of which is the lack of interest and support on the part of many of the very people in whose interests the society exists. To quote Mr. Nicol: "This indifference exists until such time as many animal-owners want our help. Then they give their first thought to the society." New Zealanders should bestir themselves in this matter. In the words of the Royal Society for the Protection of Animals, there should be created "a body of public opinion favourable to the humane treatment of animals." The S.P.0.A. in New Zealand. (Continued on page 53,)

| T HIS article throws a few significant side- | lights on the work of the Society for the | Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Every | now and then you hear an appeal for | animals put over the air-But do you give | such appeals the attention they deserve? ee

Not So Educated

t CRUSADE FOR ANIMALS (Continued from page 15.) should be supported by all, according to their means, so that it can do its great work properly, and organise a comprehensive education drive, starting in the schools, as is done in England and elsewhere, and working on the principle that "the duty of treating ‘animals with kindness implies not merely a love of animals, but a rudimentary sense of good citizenship." HE inspector's crusade for animals is by no means without its spice " of red-blooded action. He has been threatened with an axe. Furious old ladies with diseased cats have stood on their doorsteps and prophesied certain instantaneous and horrible happenings to Mr. Nicol’s person should he so much as put one foot upon their verandahs. Farmers whom he has had cause to warn have addressed him in the language of the soil. He knows that, in the course of his duties, men who believe that they should be permitted to torture their animals without official interference may have small compunction about getting rid of a little superfluous brutality on himself. On one occasion, Mr. Nicol had to forcibly take some diseased cats from a retired Indian Army officer, who firmly declared that there was nothing wrong With the animals, and even more firmly defied the inspector to remove them. The officer remained in a state of siege for some time, but was finally outmanoeuvred, but not before he had taken a large stick to Mr. Nicol, who, eclinging to the cats, escaped under a heavy barrage of the most explosive parade ground language, "T had once to interview an old woman who kept dozens of cats in a filthy bathroom,’ Mr. Nicol told me. "She refused to let me into the house, and when I tried to make for the bathroom, she came at me with a tomahawk. I got the cats in the finish, but it was a good fight while it lasted. I had another case in which a eat that had inadvertently got into an oven, was roasted alive. Neighbours of the owner reported the matter to me. TI went to the house and, although you would hardly believe it, the woman owner wanted to keep the cat, declaring that she would ‘cure it,’ "IT struck a boarding-house once where the landlady allowed more than a dozen cats to roam at will in the kitchen, and everywhere else where the food and milk for the boarders was kept," Mr. Nicol points out that suffering to animals can be caused by people who do not directly inflict physical injuries upon them, There are a large number of persons whose misguided sense of kindness-what has been deseribed as "senseless affection’-defeats its own object, and causes untold misery and pain to what these persons fondly refer to as their "pets." There have teen cases abroad of wealthy women living in seclusion with hundreds of cats confined to limited spaces such as the rooms of houses. "Efomes" for stray eats and dogs have resulted in animals that should be free to roam at will (but, of conrse, under the protection of kind owners) being herded together in

nauseating "prisons." Nothing of this sort on a large scale appears to have afflicted New Zealand, but examples of lesser ill-advised solicitude cause the S.P.C.A. concern from time to time. , next time you hear a radio appeal or a talk on behalf of the S.P.C.A., listen . . . don’t switch off because you believe the society outlived its major usefulness when laws protecting helpless animals from cruelty and ignorance appeared on the Statute Book!