AN APPEAL TO THE NATIONAL CONSCIENCE —HUMANE SLAUGHTER [To the
Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
Sm,—As the only woman Councillor on the West Penwith Rural District Council, I have had to stand alone and entirely unsupported in a vain endeavour to obtain a by-law to make the use of the humane killer compulsory in the district, and so bring to an end the great cruelty which is now taking place through the use of obsolete methods of slaughter.
I therefore venture to ask your aid in arousing the conscience of the nation as to the urgent need that there is at the present time that the humane slaughter of animals should be made a Government measure without any further delay. My appeal for mercy was in vain.
The Minister of Agriculture has stated in the General Service Publication of the Ministry of Agriculture (September 18, 1920) that : " The demand for humane killers is spreading in every direction. . . . Much remains to be done . . . but the measure of accomplishment justifies the Ministry in hoping that the time is near when the conscience of every recalcitrant authority will be moved, and a condition of things for which there is no possible excuse will become no more than an ugly memory."
If the public realized the great cruelty that is taking place in the country owing to the use of obsolete methods of slaughter, they would at once insist upon the passing of a Government Bill to make the use of the humane killer compulsory in England—as is already the case in Scotland— so that " a condition of things for which there is no possible excuse " may no longer be a blot upon our civilization in an at least nominally Christian country.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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