* * * * The quarrels among the members of
the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals are lamentable. The generous aims of the Society ought to be strictly a common cause if ever there was one. Unity is strength, and the Society needs all the strength it can summon to its aid. We publish some letters on the subject this week, but would say here that in our opinion those members who refuse to condemn all the so-called blood sports ought not to be ruled out. If they are, the Society will be terribly weakened and an immediate practical policy will become impossible. This is not a doctrine of cowardice. It is common sense. It is useless for the vanguard to go so far ahead that it passes out of sight of its possible followers. What is the immediate policy which need provoke no controversy ? Surely it is an earnest concentration upon such subjects as the export of worn-out horses, the sufferings of pit ponies, the wide- spread use of diabolically cruel traps, the caging of wild birds, the need for strengthening and enforcing. the Plumage Act, and so on. For our part we shall judge the Society by the energy With which it tackles such matters as these.
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