17 JULY 1953, Page 7

Animals and Animosities Wednesday's demonstrations by members of the staff

at the London Zoo were, as one would expect of a Society exactly coeval with the Spectator, of a comparatively decorous character. It is however not the first time in recent years that the Zoo has had an internal controversy on its hands, and in this respect it is curiously typical of almost all organisations which deal with animals on planes other than the agricultural. It is a very exceptional Hunt which has not, at least once within living memory, been involved in the equivalent of a civil war, and the more humane the objects of a society or league of animal-lovers, the stormier are apt to be its annual general meetings. In (say) Loamshire there may be occasional bickerings among those who run cricket or tennis or bowls in the county, or who write to preserve its amenities; but they are nothing to the passionate animosities which seethe below the surface of the Loamshire Hunt and the Loamshire branch of the Society for Animal Betterment. I can offer no explanation of thiS odd social phenomenon.