One hundred years ago
Miss Lindo's admirable project, com- municated on Monday last to a meeting of ladies and gentlemen, held at the rooms of the 'Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals', in Jermyo Street, for establishing a convalescent home for horses, — and, let us hope, with some of the members present, — donkeys and mules also, in or near London, brings before us the very special claims of a class of animals which have hitherto attracted a good deal less of our sympathy than they deserve. . . . Only conceive what Lon- don would be if all the horses and donkeys were to die in the night. Even the railways would be comparatively useless. Enormous stores of goods would remain at that terminuses of the various lines, as immoveable as 'real property' itself. Even the suspension of all cabs for a single day would be bad enough. But how life woud be carried on without the tradesmen's carts, with- out the great vans whch carry on the larger traffic, without the hucksters and costermongers who help the poor to what they need, it is impossible to conceive. Yet all this is effected by what in a sense we may call the enslavement of some of the most powerful, most tractable, most sagacious of our fellow- creatures. Spectator, 15 May 1886
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