THE NEW ITALIAN LAW AGAINST CRUELTY TO ANIMALS.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—Filled with the daily tale of horrors and carnage the press has let go, unobserved, an event which may bring some drops of consolation to the worshippers at the altar of pity. I allude to the passing of the new law for the protection of animals in the Italian Chamber by a secret vote of 206 against 23. The old law in Zanardelli's code was large in intention but vague in expression, which rendered it difficult to put in practice ; the new law supplements it by "especially prohibiting acts of cruelty such as the employ- ment of animals which, from age, wounds, or disease, are not fit to work ; their abandonment ; games that cause suffering to animals, ill-treatment of cattle during transport, blinding of birds, and, in general, all useless torture of every species of animal for commercial purposes." Article II. of the new law aims at limiting the abuses of -vivisection. A commission has been appointed (on which the excellent Roman Society for the Protection of Animals will be represented) to establish the best means for en- forcing the law as it now stands. Much remains to be done, but it will be admitted that a step in advance has been made, and the discussion in the Chamber will do much to educate public opinion, which is the great thing needed. Signor Luzzatti, the real author of the Bill (as he had prepared it just before he ceased to be Prime Minister), made a speech covering the whole range of humane sentiment, and I hope it will not be deemed unbecoming if I mention that he declared he had come to the House armed " with all the texts which are to be found collected in the work of una donna gentile e colts, ' The Place of Animals in Human Thought." As he speaks so rarely now in the Chamber, observing a silence which, as Signor Giolitti said, is dear to no one but himself, his speech was all the more warmly received, and the birds of St. Francis, Garibaldi's mare, and Mazzini's spider all came in for their weed of applause. Not the least significant sequel to the debate was a long article in the Vatican organ, the Osservatore Romano, by a learned ecclesiastic, Canon Roberto Puccini, who urged all classes to help the work by example and, where necessary, by reporting to the police acts of cruelty which come under their notice.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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