THE TWO SOCIETIES FOR PREVENTING CRUELTY.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
Sin,—In your article on the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, in the Spectator of May 26th (than which Society none could be more humane), you mention the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in two places, as follows (I reverse the order of the two, as I wish to speak of the last first) :—" In a reserve fund of 00,000, the .sister-Society for preventing cruelty to animals, has its busi- ness stability;" and, "It is a remarkable, and not altogether a satisfactory, circumstance that it should prove easier to raise money for the prevention of cruelty to animals than for the prevention of cruelty to children." First, as to the 00,000. This sum is the invested capital of the Society, accumulated by bequests since its commencement, which the Society was obliged to invest owing to the forms of bequest, and which yields an income of about 22,000 per annum,— which sum only suffices to pay the salaries of a few out of the Society's 120 agents.
Secondly, as to the comparison between the two Societies in the matter of raising funds. It must be remembered that
the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has existed for seventy years, while the Children Society has existed for only ten ! When the younger Society has reached the age of the elder—sixty years hence—it will be time to compare its resources with the present resources of the Animal Society; and judging by the rapid progress of the Children Society in its ten years of life, I imagine and believe that it will have outstripped its sister, as far as the claims of children are higher and more sacred than those of animals,—sacred as I hold the latter to be.—I am, Sir, &m,
A SUBSCRIBER mo BOTH SOCIETIES.
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