"Witness the patient ox, with stripes and yells 145. In all parts of the world where flesh meat is used for food, the art of torturing dumb animals for the purpose of pampering a perverted appetite, is carried to such an extreme as to shock any sensitive mind. "Creation's groans, through ocean, earth, and sky, 146. Even in the warm climate of Abyssinia, a marked penchant exists for raw flesh cut out of an animal alive, and while the fibres are yet quivering. Not only Bruce, but Pearce and Coffin, who remained in the country, and became intimately acquainted with the manners of the people, give shocking details of the cruelty that is there practised. The favorite portion is called the shulada; and is cut out, on each side, from the buttocks, near the tail. As soon as these are taken away, the wounds are sewed up by these surgical butchers, and plastered over with cow-dung. The animal, which had been thrown down before, and during the operation, is now allowed to rise, and is driven forward on its journey. The fashionable parties at Gondar, the capital of Abyssinia, are served with brinde, or raw meat, with the same hospitable feeling as, in our part of the world, they would be with venison * CowPER. + POETICAL WORKS OF JAMES MONTGOMERY. Vol. IV. P. 134. The animal, a cow or a bul chops done just to the turn. lock, is brought to the door, and the dainty pieces cut off in the manner above described. But on this occasion, the animal is killed; before doing which, all the flesh is cut off in solid square pieces, without bones or much effusion of blood. Two or three servants are then employed, who, as fast as they can procure the brinde, lay it upon cakes of teff placed like dishes down the table, without cloth or any thing else beneath them. The fast-days of these carnivorous and licentious people, misnamed Christians, amount to no less than a hundred and sixty-five in the year. The fast is only preserved, however, until about three o'clock in the afternoon, after which, they make for their former reserve."* In some parts of the East, animals are cruelly whipped to death, to render their flesh tender. up 147. "The celebrated pâtés de fois gras prepared at Strasbourg, are made of the livers of geese, artificially enlarged by the cruel process of shutting the birds up in coops, within a room heated to a very high temperature, and stuffing them constantly with food.” † 148. A person lately passing through Leadenhall market, observed (on a stall) a chicken which, though it had been plucked, was still alive and in motion; while several others were undergoing the same process. When the gentleman remonstrated with those who were thus torturing the poor creatures, he received nothing but abuse in DR. JOHN BELL ON REGIMEN AND LONGEVITY. P. 59. +MURRAY'S "HAND BOOK FOR TRAVELLERS ON THE CONTINENT." (1836.) return. The opinions of others on this subject may not be unacceptable to the reader. 149. "Nothing can be more shocking and horrid", says Pope," than one of our kitchens sprinkled with blood, and abounding with the cries of creatures expiring, or with the limbs of dead animals scattered, or hung up here and there. It gives one the image of a giant's den in romance; bestrewed with scattered heads and mangled limbs." 150. Diogenes observed, that "we might as well eat the flesh of men, as the flesh of other animals." And Cicero remarked, that "man was destined to a better occupation, than that of pursuing and cutting the throats of dumb creatures." 151. Plutarch remarks-" How could man bear to see an impotent and defenceless creature slaughtered, skinned, and cut up for food? How could he endure the sight of the convulsed limbs and muscles? How bear the smell arising from the dissection? Whence came it that he was not disgusted, and struck with horror, when he came to handle the bleeding flesh, and clear away the clotted blood and humours from the wounds? We should therefore rather wonder at those who first indulged themselves in this horrible repast, than at such as have humanely abstained from it." 152. Dr. Cheyne says "I have sometimes indulged the conjecture, that animal food and made or artificial liquors, in the original frame of our nature and design of our creation, were not intended for human creatures. They seem to me neither to have those strong and fit organs for digesting them (at least such as birds and beasts of prey have that live on flesh); nor those cruel and hard hearts, or those diabolical passions, which would easily suffer them to tear and destroy their fellow-creatures ;— at least, not in the first and early ages; before every man had corrupted his way, and God was forced to exterminate the whole race by a universal deluge; and was also obliged to shorten their lives, from nine hundred or a thousand years, to seventy." 153. "To see the convulsions, agonies, and tortures of a poor fellow-creature", continues Dr. Cheyne, "whom they cannot restore or recompense, dying to gratify luxury, must require a rocky heart, and a great degree of cruelty and ferocity." "I cannot find", adds he, "any great difference, on the foot of natural reason and equity only, between feeding on human flesh, and feeding on brute animal flesh, except custom and example. I believe some rational creatures would suffer less in being fairly butchered, than a strong ox or red deer; and, in natural morality and justice, the degrees of pain here make the essential difference.” * 154. Doctor Hawkesworth observes-"Among other dreadful and disgusting images which custom has rendered familiar, are those which arise from eating animal food. He who has ever turned with abhorrence from the skeleton of a beast, which has been picked whole by birds or vermin, must confess that habit alone could have enabled him to endure the sight of the mangled bones and flesh of a dead carcase, which every day cover his table; and he *CHEYNE'S ESSAY ON REGIMEN. who reflects on the number of lives that have been sacrificed to sustain his own, should inquire by what the account has been balanced; and whether his life is become proportionably of more value by the exercise of virtue and piety, by the superior happiness which he has communicated to reasonable beings, and by the glory which his intellect has ascribed to God." * 155. Were a person under the necessity of killing all the animals whose limbs he devours, then would he more frequently be led to ask, whether that food could be natural to him, the procuring of which does such violence to other parts of his nature. His sympathies would then be a greater check upon his desires for flesh; and he would more frequently be induced to satisfy his hunger with the rich, abundant, and delicious products of the vegetable world. But if we shrink from the task of taking life ourselves, and shun the scenes of cruelty inflicted by others upon dumb animals, why should we, by our gross, unnatural appetites, render it a work of necessity to our domestics, and those who supply our larders? Far be it from me to infer, that either a butcher or a sportsman is necessarily more cruel than another man;—either to his own species, or to the animals he slays for our food. Many of those whose business it is to destroy life, are known to be humane and merciful; and would spare unnecessary pain to the beasts they kill: but it cannot be denied, that there are others thus employed, who become callous and unfeeling ; -utterly regardless of the pains they thoughtlessly, or *EDITION OF SWIFT'S WORKS. |