itably come to the conclusion that the
giraffe is a sedentary and melancholy beast, standing immovable for
hours at a time and employing an Italian to feed him hay and cabbages.
As well proceed to a study of the psychology of a juris-consult by
first immersing him in Sing Sing, or of a juggler by first cutting off
his hands. Knowledge so gained is inaccurate and imbecile knowledge. Not
even a college professor, if sober, would give it any faith and credit.

There remains, then, the only true utility of a zoo: it is a childish
and pointless show for the unintelligent, in brief, for children,
nursemaids, visiting yokels and the generality of the defective. Should
the taxpayers be forced to sweat millions for such a purpose? I think
not. The sort of man who likes to spend his time watching a cage of
monkeys chase one another, or a lion gnaw its tail, or a lizard catch
flies, is precisely the sort of man whose mental weakness should be
combatted at the public expense, and not fostered. He is a public
liability and a public menace, and society should seek to improve him.
Instead of that, we spend a lot of money to feed his degrading appetite
and further paralyze his mind. It is precisely as if the community
provided free champagne for dipsomaniacs, or hired lecturers to convert
the army to the doctrines of the Bolsheviki.

Of the abominable cruelties practised in zoos it is unnecessary to make
mention. Even assuming that all the keepers are men of delicate natures
and ardent zoophiles (which is about as safe as assuming that the
keepers of a prison are all sentimentalists, and weep for the sorrows of
their charges), it must be plain that the work they do involves an
endless war upon the native instincts of the animals, and that they
must thus inflict the most abominable tortures every day. What could be
a sadder sight than a tiger in a cage, save it be a forest monkey
climbing dispairingly up a barked stump, or an eagle chained to its
roost? How can man be benefitted and made better by robbing the seal of
its arctic ice, the hippopotamus of its soft wallow, the buffalo of its
open range, the lion of its kingship, the birds of their air?

I am no sentimentalist, God knows. I am in favor of vivisection
unrestrained, so long as the vivisectionist knows what he is about. I
advocate clubbing a dog that barks unnecessarily, which all dogs do. I
enjoy hangings, particularly of converts to the evangelical faiths. The
crunch of a c