A Barbarous Rite
By LORD DUNSANY ICTURESQUE though savage customs are, and savagely though they are loved by those addicted to them, 1 venture to lift my pen against one of them now, against a blood-sport in which 1 can see no fun and certainly no sport, the amusement of cutting tails off dogs. No, it is neither sport nor amusement, but simply one of those rites handed down from barbarous times, and thereby keeping our own times barbarous still.
Only the other day I saw a pair of dogs that had no tails at all, not even the mutilated stumps that are usually allowed to fox- ' terriers ; and the only reason for this barbarity was that they were corgis, and corgis cannot be allowed to have tails. Once in one county of Wales there lived, I am told, a humane and enlightened man who spared corgis, and in that county they are still allowed to have tails ; or, as a futile book which I once saw described it, the difference between this breed and the rest is that they wear their tails long.
. Let any that enjoy this barbarous rite continue it: I cannot stop them. Any missionary who has worked in Africa will tell how hard it is even to check any sacrificial rite, and the most barbarous rites are sacrificial. But do not let them justify what they do, or what they permit to be done, by any argument ; for all the arguments that I have ever heard in favour of the rite are such as would damn any cause. Let those who permit this mutilation take comfort in the thought that by letting it happen they have their little share in whatever may be wildly romantic in dark ages that have fortunately otherwise left us, and some little link with rites performed under the moon in Africa, accompanied by the throbbing of drums, and which may be pleasant to imagine in the sameness of urban surroundings, however sick they might make a white man who saw them.
One argument of all the arguments I have ever heard in favour of this cruelty is logical, and I will therefore mention this argument, as 1 have done elsewhere : it is that if a tail were spared to a spaniel and if he got into a bramble bush, it might become scratched by thorns. This argument is at least sane, and it happens that I am able to 'give first-hand evidence concerning it, for I still remember how as a child I went blackberrying and thorns got into my shins and, though they did not hurt going in, it hurt when my nurse extracted them with a needle. But the principal consideration is that even after the thorns .got in, let alone before, nobody ever suggested amputation. Why, therefore, should we recommend it for spaniels 7, However, the argument about brambles is logical ; so let advo- cates of chopping off tails make the most of it. Only please let them not say that cutting off tails does not hurt, or that dogs have no uses for their tails, or that they look better without them, or with mutilated stumps ; or, at least, before saying any of these things, let them sit down and think out carefully where, if some other race ruled the world and were as cruel and foolish as we, they would like ten or twelve inches of bone cut off from themselves, because they had no use for it, and because they would look much nicer that way, and because it didn't hurt, and because it was only gristle, and because one couldn't have them going about with it undocketl and looking absurd. And let them realise that a condition of that quiet thought is that they would be unable to speak a single word of that conquering race's language, and that not one human being would ever be able to say that it does hurt and that they have countless uses' for every bone in their bodies, and that even if they could speak that conquering language they could never persuade anyone who saw beauty in mutilation that they would not look better with their noses cut off, being left with a nice smooth face.
1 believe that in some such calin contemplation as that, whenever any reader may have the time for it, lies a dog's best chance of being spared. And let anyone that cares to undertake this investigation consider that it may even have been a near thing once as to who should get dominion of the world. One day one of my ancestors, living on flint-strewn hills, and of yours, my reader, while chipping a flint to make a spear to defend himself, hit on the trick of fire. He was not very intelligent, but the spear and the fire together gave him the start that brought his race to the position it now holds. He might easily have missed that start, and then that consideration might have arisen: where would you like ten or twelve inches of bone to be cut off from you in order to make you look nicer ? I suggested a nose, though it is a far less deprivation than what so many inflict on dogs ; but these arguments could be advanced in favour of it by any race powerful enough and stupid enough to dock it.
First of all the middle of the face is not the right place for a nose: it should be down at the end of the face in the proper place. And, then, human beings have no use for their noses ; they can't smell, and you never see them even trying to use any sense of smell, or trying to track anybody who has gone by, even if he has only just gone ; besides which, if they ever did want to smell, they could do it perfectly well without nostrils, which are of no use whatever and should therefore be cut off. And, if you consider the comfort and convenience of human beings themselves, you will realise what an advantage it is to them to have their noses docked, because if you left them on and they should get among thorns, they would get horribly scratched, and would be all a bleeding mess ; and of course they can see so much better if they have not that unsightly lump right between their eyes, which must so much interfere with their vision until it has been attended to. It is only a kindness to them to do it. And you must admit that they look much nicer that way. And, in any case, it is always done ; so there must be some good reason for it. And you can't have them going about with long noses : they would look absurd. Anyway, I am not going to have my human being going about looking a freak.
And remember, no answer to a single one of these arguments. For you would not know their language, and they would be supposed to have reason, and you none. To be a reasonable creature is not to have reason ; it is to assert that you have it, and to be strong enough not to allow that assertion to be questioned by any. But considering the length of bone of which we deprive spaniels, a better parallel Would be ten inches or so cut off from the left arm. It wouldn't hurt if done properly ; men's arms are only gristle when they are quite young ; it is known that they never use their left arms, I have watched them myself ; and the stump looks so much nicer.
And do not let my reader reject any one of these arguments on account of its being futile ; but let him remember that in this sorry business futile arguments hold good, and in any case cannot be answered by those on whom the barbarous rite is inflicted. Anyone who is quite sure why such a thing should never be done to himself is surely well on his way to sparing dogs. And anyone who is the means of sparing even one dog that would have otherwise suffered this cruel deprivation may watch that dog sleeping on cold nights with the feathery part of the tail over his nose, as we pull up blankets when cold, and see it balancing itself with every step that it takes when it runs, and steering itself when it turns, using it as a rudder when it swims, and, if it be a bitch, making a kind or nest of it for its young, and using it in many other ways which a merciful reader will observe for himself.
Surely it will be a satisfaction to' anyone observir.g these things to think how many simple comforts, which but for him would have been lost, he has preserved for a creature that trusts him.
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