There has been a fresh exposure this week of one
of the most shameful, because one of the most wanton, of our cruelties. A passenger in a Rotterdam and London steamboat gives a most horrible account of the cruelty inflicted on the cattle imported,— partly from utter unconcern for their comfort, partly from a positive pleasure in their sufferings. The sheep were packed into one dense mass of flesh—as it were, a continuous life-solid,---without power to move, so that if one fell from exhaustion it was trampled under foot. The filth, of course, and smell were horrible ; for the whole twenty-two hours they had no food or water, and the sailors, in passing them, had to leap down on to the backs of the sheep. Of course, the sailors kicked and danced upon them at pleasure, and one youug ruffian was twice caught worrying the wretched, densely-packed creatures with a dog. Even when they got to London, we are told that they were not refreshed in any way by being turned out, but sent directly to the market, there to wait through the Sunday before they could be sold. The Times points out that the Contagious Diseases' (Cattle) Act of last session gives the Government ample power to insist on fit accommodation and good food for these unfortunate imports, and we hope the next captain who permits such a scandal will suffer heavily. It hardly involves, we suppose, so wicked a form of cruelty as the slave trade and its middle passage ; yet there is something in deliberate cruelty to creatures that can't so much as mutiny, or even hate you for the misery you inflict, which seems even meaner and more despicable.
Previous page
