Animal rights

“ Tame animals accustom themselves to their stables, and the judge decides according to the instinct of the animal as to who is its owner. Yet, would it not be proper to have all tame animals marked in some way, the marks to be as inviolable as those which designate the several pieces of landed property, and thus to place them under the direct protection of the law? (In the armies the horses are, indeed, so marked.) Each bill of sale of an animal ought to be accompanied by a specification of the mark upon the animal, so as to guarantee perfect safety to the purchaser. ”

“ The best effort to supply the missing chapter of ethics is the charming and eloquent volume, Rights of an Animal, by E. B. Nicholson. I thankfully recognize the candor wherewith the author has tackled the difficult problems of the case, and the value of his demonstration that the law of England assumes the fundamental principle that cruelty to an animal is an offence per se, and that it is not necessary to show that it injures any human owner or spectator. ”

“ Meanwhile Europeans are awakening more and more to a sense that beasts have rights, in proportion as the strange notion is being gradually overcome and outgrown, that the animal kingdom came into existence solely for the benefit and pleasure of man. This view, [11] with the corollary that non-human living creatures are to be regarded merely as things, is at the root of the rough and altogether reckless treatment of them, which obtains in the West. ”

“ By this method also we put an end to the time-honoured disputes concerning the participation of animals in natural law: for it is clear that, being destitute of intelligence and liberty, they cannot recognise that law; as they partake, however, in some measure of our nature, in consequence of the sensibility with which they are endowed, they ought to partake of natural rights so that mankind is subjected to a kind of obligation even toward the brutes. ”

“ The idea that animals have rights, in regard to us, has, for me, no meaning. How can they have what they cannot conceive of having? If they have, so must vegetables. Whenever they enforce something against us, it is through might that they do it, and this might we have, in a greater degree, over them. ”

“ In all cases where these special rights do not exist, the right to take or kill wild animals is treated as a profit incidental to the ownership or occupation of the land on which they are found, and there is no public right to take them on private land or even on a highway ”

“ Now it cannot be denied that sheep, cattle, deer, birds, and fishes are our fellow-creatures. They differ from us in some respects, but those in which they differ are few and secondary, while those that they have in common with us are many and essential. My friends, if it was wrong of you to kill and eat your fellow-men, it is wrong also to kill and eat fish, flesh, and fowl. Birds, beasts, and fishes, have as full a right to live as long as they can unmolested by man, as man has to live unmolested by his neighbours. ”

“ With this superstition the League was in conflict from the first.
But perhaps some of my readers may still think that time spent on the rights of animals is so much taken away from the great human interests that are at stake. Let us help men first, they may argue, and then, when mankind is righted, we can help the animals after. ”

“ Experience as interpreted by the English law has shown that dogs, rams, and bulls are in general of a tame and mild nature, and that, if any one of them does by chance exhibit a tendency to bite, butt, or gore, it is an exceptional phenomenon. Hence it is not the law that a man keeps dogs, rams, bulls, and other like tame animals at his peril as to the personal damages which they may inflict, unless he knows or has notice that the particular animal kept by him has the abnormal tendency which they do sometimes show. ”

“ But with the gradual advance of civilisation and increase in material prosperity, people began to ask questions about things that they had hitherto taken as matters of course, and one old gentleman, who had great influence over them by reason of the sanctity of his life, and his supposed inspiration by an unseen power, whose existence was now beginning to be felt, took it into his head to disquiet himself about the rights of animals—a question that so far had disturbed nobody. ”

“ With the aid of a little serious study, it is by no means difficult to recognize the hard laws that have enabled the elephant, bison, sheep, goats, deer, antelope, gazelles, fur-seal, walrus and others to survive and increase. From the wild animal herds and bird flocks that we have seen and personally known, we know what their laws are, and can set them down in the order of their evolution and importance.
The First Law. There shall be no fighting in the family, the herd or the species, at any other time than in the mating season; and then only between adult males who fight for herd leadership. ”

“ Has man the right to make living beings suffer for purposes of utility or information?
We remark, first, that if vivisection is to be proscribed, it will be impossible to draw the line at any animal. If morality prohibits us from experimenting on the dog, we must, by the same rule, respect the cat, the rabbit, the fowl, the turtle, and the frog. If we prohibit the use of the frog, how can we permit the use of the snail, the oyster, and the medusa? In a little while we come to those beings the animal nature of which is in dispute. ”

“ The government, foreseeing the rapid disappearance of the game, has passed a law forbidding any one to waste the flesh of any wild animal, under a penalty ranging from three to fifteen pounds for each offence, according to the size of the animal. ”

“ But let no one believe that this taming and feeding of the animals is the true legal ground of the right of property in them. That legal ground is to be found only in the property-compact Hence, if any one should introduce a new kind of tamed animals, for instance, buffaloes or kangaroos, the state would first have to declare them animals to which the right of property should extend, since otherwise they would be properly treated like wild animals. ”

“ Looking back to the formation of the first society for the prevention of cruelty to animals, we find since that time a gradual awakening to the duties man owes to those below him in the scale of animal creation. The titles of those societies and their objects, as defined by their charters, show that at first it was considered sufficient to protect animals from cruel treatment: very few people gave thought to the care of those that were without homes. ”

“ Article III-121 In formulating and implementing the Union's agriculture, fisheries, transport, internal market, research and technological development and space policies, the Union and the Member States shall, since animals are sentient beings, pay full regard to the requirements of animal welfare, while respecting the legislative or administrative provisions and customs of Member States relating in particular to religious rites, cultural traditions and regional heritage. ”

“ This humane regulation of Nature, which may justly75 be entitled "a law for the protection of animals from cruelty," applies to every hunting stable, large as well as small, not only in the United Kingdom, but throughout the world. Indeed if it be lucrative to a man to take care of the sheep, oxen, and other animals he is rearing merely to eat, it is most especially his interest by every attention in his power to enable his hunter to carry him safely ”

“ This act of 1861 was in force when the act of 1866-the act in controversy-was passed, and it will be seen that birds and fowls are not embraced in the term 'animals,' and that they are free from duty, not because they belong to the class of 'living animals of all kinds,' but for the reason that they are especially designated. ”

“ But, lest there be any one who wishes to take up this point of abstruse philosophy, I admit at once that animals have no more rights than have babies under the age when they may be said to have duties (on which rights, we are told, depend) , that animals have no more rights than imbeciles, or those who are deaf, dumb, and blind. ”

“ Many states throughout the Union are enacting laws to protect the fur bearing animals of their respective states, and are only placing bounties on such animals as are of little use as fur bearers, and are destructive to stock. ”

“ With regard to animals not then treated as property, which in the main were the wilder animals, the law was settled that, "if they are of a tame nature, there must be notice of the ill quality; and the law takes notice, that a dog is not of a fierce nature, but rather the contrary." ”

“ And he would recognise that the vital material interests of the nation can be protected only by armed force; that civilisation can be safeguarded only by punishing violations of the criminal law; and that the taking of animal life and the infliction of a certain amount of physical suffering upon animals is essential to human well-being, comfort, and recreation ”

“ First, let all humans inform themselves of the inevitable and eternal cruelty by the means of which only can animals be compelled to perform before revenue-paying audiences. Second, I suggest that all men and women, and boys and girls, who have so acquainted themselves with the essentials of the fine art of animal-training, should become members of, and ally themselves with, the local and national organizations of humane societies and societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals. ”

“ It is characteristic of sympathetic movements that, while they are slowly prepared for, their final development is very rapid. Thus it has come about that within one hundred years the conception of the rights of animals has advanced with almost startling rapidity. No other moral gain has been made with such speed or has so rapidly become a part of the property of civilized man. ”

“ Wild animals, he said, must not be fostered at the expense of the people, and the cultivator must have reasonable means of protection. The Government, hitherto, have not been very bold in their legislation; Elephants have been protected, a close season for certain kinds of game has been instituted, certain wild birds have been protected, and certain classes of animals have been protected in certain forest tracts. ”

“ The act of 1849 also forbids bull- and bear-baiting, or fighting between any kinds of animals; requires the provision of food and water to animals impounded; lays down regulations as to the treatment of animals sent for slaughter, and imposes a penalty for improperly conveying animals. The Wild Animals in Captivity Protection Act 1900 extends to wild animals in captivity that protection which the acts of 1849 and 1854 conferred on domestic animals, making exception of any act done or any omission in the preparation of animals for the food of man or for sport. ”

“ What could the lion, or tiger, or butcher do with active Benevolence, or Conscientiousness (or Spirituality) ? . . . No one faculty should ever be so exercised as to clash with the normal function of any other. . . . . Animal food is therefore (unnatural, improper, and injurious,) because it can be procured only by violating man's moral constitution. ”

“ It is only a question of starting a new standard. In two years’ time, if these simple, harmless regulations concerning the slaughter of animals for food were enforced—not merely recommended, as now—there would hardly be an animal in this country bled without first being stunned by humane methods, or any beasts watching their fellows being killed. ”

“ Q. If there are Rules of Justice, of Morality, that extend to all Animals, what do those Men deserve, who have believed this and yet plundered, preyed upon, Murdered Fowl, Beasts and fishes in all Ages. -- How can we answer for robbing the Birds Nests of their Eggs and Young, for butchering, fleecing, Sheep, Lamb's, Calves, Oxen &c., or will the Assistance we give them, in providing Food and shelter for them in Winter, and Pasturage in Winter, justify our Cruel Depredations upon them? ”

“ In the first place, you are to respect the privileges of all claiming a desire for our protection, whether an Animalculan of Mouthpat birth, or of other nationality. In the second place we shall hold you personally responsible for any acts of cruelty perpetrated by Animalculans under your control upon animal or insect; and for the honor of instinctive humanity we especially interdict all barbarous amusements between man and man. ”

“ Build bird houses, report any violations of the bird laws, watch the cats, punish the blue jays and other harmful birds as the law punishes human beings that take life, never put out poison, arrange drinking and bathing places, girls should never wear birds in their hats, never aid in long imprisonment of wild birds. ”

“ While these regulations are more than ordinarily stringent, and might be declared to be unconstitutional, if applied to domestic animals generally, there is nothing in them of which the owner of a dog has any legal right to complain. ”

“ To regulate or prohibit the running at large of animals within the limits of the town. To license, tax, regulate or prohibit the keeping of dogs, and authorize the destruction of the same, when at large contrary to ordinance. ”

“ It will be said perhaps that the slaughter and sale of these birds is all in the way of legitimate trade, a mere commonplace matter of supply and demand; that the law of nature is a law of rapine and ruthless slaughter; that the fowler for gain who pouches a Humming-bird or a Bird of Paradise, with as little misgiving as an angler baskets a Trout, is a mere instrument of this law to which birds themselves are subject both actively and passively ”