NATURAL DEATH IN THE ANIMAL WORLD. [To THE EDITOR OF
THE "SPECTATOR."] :SIE,"I am gratified to find, on carefully re-reading the very Linteresting article in the Spectator of February 19th, that the writer supports in the main my original contention in the St. Anyea's Gazette. True, he adds as an important factor, of iihich in my letter I omitted to take account, animal pidemics to the sources of death. But most of the diseases f which he takes account mean a painful env. nor can all of hem be described as rapid in their effects. Whether, then, nimals meet their death through starvation, violence, cold, stemper, or rabies, that death is still always painful, often lingering as well; always more cruel than an unexpected billet from a well-handled gun. The members of the anti- sport-section of the Humanitarian League resent, I am given to mOilerstand, the defence of shooting based on this likening of tt human code of morals to the cruelty of Nature. It behoves „ be 4 ).: however, to bear in mind—even those among us who are m so lialthusian as to welcome Nature's rough-and-ready nopthods of dealing with the eternal problem of over-pro- )i
duc ion — that we cannot, however great our zeal, alter her • *spositions. The only remedy would be for man to
turn the world into one vast park, and there take under his protection every defenceless creature, and by artificial means avert, or alleviate, the cruelties of the natural life. But where would the poor tigers go ? or would they be educated in the superior attractions of morning bread and milk and evening hay ? Let us try to believe that Nature's " cruelty" is but kindness veiled, even unto her epidemics.— I am, Sir, The Club, Bournemouth, February 2181. F. G. AFLALO. .
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