using a great deal of
suffering among animals in breeding, raising, transporting, and killing
them for food. It is sometimes said that animals do not suffer if they
are handled humanely, and if they are slaughtered in abattoirs under
proper superintendence. But we must not forget the branding and
castrating operations; the journey to the slaughter-house, which when
trans-continental and trans-oceanic must be a long drawn-out nightmare
of horror and terror to the doomed beasts; we must not forget the
insatiable cruelty of the average cowboy; we must not forget that the
animal inevitably spends at least some minutes of instinctive dread and
fear when he smells and sees the spilt blood of his forerunners, and
that this terror is intensified when, as is frequently the case, he
witnesses the dying struggles, and hears the heart-rending groans; we
must not forget that the best contrivances sometimes fail to do good
work, and that a certain percentage of victims have to suffer a
prolonged death-agony owing to the miscalculation of a bad workman. Most
people go through life without thinking of these things: they do not
stop and consider from whence and by what means has come to their table
the flesh-food that is served there. They drift along through a mundane
existence without feeling a pang of remorse for, or even thought of, the
pain they are accomplices in producing in the sub-human world. And it
cannot be denied, hide it how we may, either from our eyes or our
conscience, that however skilfully the actual killing may usually be
carried out, there is much unavoidable suffering caused to the beasts
that have to be transported by sea and rail to the slaughter-house. The
animals suffer violently from sea-sickness, and horrible cruelty (such
as pouring boiling oil into their ears, and stuffing their ears with hay
which is then set on fire, tail-twisting, etc.,) has to be practised to
prevent them lying down lest they be trampled on by other beasts and
killed; for this means that they have to be thrown overboard, thus
reducing the profits of their owners, or of the insurance companies,
which, of course, would be a sad calamity. Judging by the way the men
act it does not seem to matter what cruelties and tortures are
perpetuated; what heinous offenses against every humane sentiment of the
human heart are committed; it does not matter to what depths of Satanic
callousness man stoops provided always that--this is the supreme
questio