[To the Editor of the SeErrvron.]
Stu,- -Lord ',misdate is to be congratulated on bring the first individual of Mote eonnected with the performing animal world to take up the cudgels lull its ilk reply to the huge number of letters which ihuurimig the last year have appeared in the Press.
It is impossible to give a detailed reply to his lengthy letter in the amount of space I dare beg you, Sir, and I propose, therefore, to sift the relatively few grains of performing animal wheat from the extraneous barley and oats.
In the first place I want to stress the point that this is no mere academie question. Fellow ereat ores of ours are suffering the torments of rapture, transport and lifelong howls° lllll ent, and Lord Lonsdale's plea that it is all right if they have never known freedom must be rejeeted at the outset. Would he or anyone else care to be forced to remain in the room he was born in for the term of his natural (or, rather, unnatural) life?
These animals have to be " trained "— a Ny11011{111 for " broken " by hunger, thirst, 'wring or lash. We are told that Mr. Mills is very careful to choose turns not trained by cruelty. Does anyone believe that Cossmeyer's victim and slayer was trained by kindness ? But how can Mr. Mills possibly know the exact methods used without being present in person at the training ? Moreover. if he is so sure MI this vital point, it would be interesting to knol, why he has not yet furnished me with the two passes to insimet his animals at any hour of the day or night, which I asked him for, comet poim/o, at
Margate, in 11r29.
It is certainly a great pity that Lord Lonsdale was not in his seat in the Lords last March when Lord Auckland made his memorable, and so far unchallenged, indictment of per- forming animal trainers, and it is difficult to see Low, in the
face of
The decision ofthe House of Lords to prohibit performing a • al turns ;
His position as a Vice-President of II,,' 11.S.P.C.A.. which Society is now engaged in active propaganda against these tunas ; and His own denunciation of travelling menageries,
Lord ',misdate can find it possible to be in any way c etcd with a circus which has had a travelling menagerie attached to it all this last summer.
But, really, who benefits, morally or otherwise. from these turns ? The animals obviously- do not. Nor do the children ; in fact men and women teachers have protested most strongly against children being permitted to see them ; and, as Jack London pertinently remarked, no normal man or woman who knows anything about the atrocities of the trade can possibly take pleasure in them.
Lord Lonsdale can, by using his influence in the right
direct' , earn the gratitude not only of the nation as a whole, but of a very hard-hit section thereof, the unemployed human artistes, who are searching in vain for the jobs which these inane animal turns at present occupy in some of our circuses and music halls, for there is, of eourse. no intention on any-one's part to attempt to abolish the eireus. and one can only wonder what has led Lord Lonsdale to make such a suggestion.- 1 am. Sir, Sze., EamusD MAcMicamu., Secretary, Performing and Captive Animals Defence League. 17 Rueleinglann Street, Adelphi, It.C. 2.
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