ANIMAL PROTECTION [To The Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
SIR,—In an article under the above heading in your issue of the 1st inst., the Duchess of Hamilton stated that, at the recent Animal Protection Congress held in Vienna, Dr. Klein gave an illustrated lecture " on the Jewish method of slaughter, demonstrating its inhumanity." The Jews do not for a moment admit that the slaughtering portrayed in Dr. Klein's film was the method practised by the Jews, which is a method entailing long training and a knowledge of anatomy, and even when so equipped the operator is subjected both to supervision and periodical re-examination. So meticulous is the care of the Jews in their slaughtering that only men of high character and of good education are permitted to kill.
The film was " faked " for the purpose of an attack on the Jewish method, and the killing it depicted was in no sense a Jewish ritual killing. It is learnt that a Jew who asked leave to attend at the killing was refused permission. It is therefore hardly surprising that in this travesty of " Jewish killing " an animal is shown which had had its throat cut when in such a position that the resulting meat would have been pronounced unfit for consumption by orthodox Jews. Is it fair that photographic evidence of this type should be put forward to prove that the real Jewish method is inhumane ? Fair con- clusions to be drawn from the photographs in question are that an ordinary slaughterman (lacking the careful training in the Jewish method which is absolutely essential if the killings are to be both humane and in accordance with Jewish law) is not qualified to perform such a delicate surgical operation with humanity, and that the cuts delivered by this amateur " Shochet " were not given in the precise Jewish method which, unless Sir Wm. Bayliss and a number of other non- Jewish and unbiased scientists were deplorably wrong, and were incompetent as physiologists and surgeons, produces immediate insensibility from which the animal does not recover.—I am, Sir, &c., CHARLES H. L. EMANUEL,
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