TORTURED WHALES.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE SPEOTE.TOR,'] !SIR,—The death of the wretched mammal which was brought to the Aquarium at 1Vestininster has supplied a text for much gush- ing composition. I have read pages of eloquence, with meta- phors and illustrations drawn from everybody who ever wrote any- thing about whales, including King David and Sir Allen Young, but it seems to me that in the record of the early death of the poor creature which has just blighted the hopes of the managers of the Aquarium, and the encomiums on the noble burst of energy and enterprise which has instantly ordered six more live whales, 'two incidental, but inseparable portions of the subject have
been entirely left out of consideration. I therefore desire to draw your attention to the (happily past) sufferings of • the creature which has cheated the managers and the sight- :seers, and to the meditated cruelty about to be enacted by the commissioners of the energetic and enterprising persons who already improve the public mind by keeping alligators —whose natural place of abode is the yielding mud of a great 'river-bank, under a burning sun—in a small tank, ill-supplied with foul water, under a dark roof, and flagged with stone, on which the poor prisoners can barely turn, and which denies them the chief indulgence, of their natural lives, the half-buried condition dear alike to the saurian and the Nile buffalo.
The whale which died, so fortunately for itself, on last Saturday had undoubtedly suffered horrid agonies, apart from the tortures of its capture, during its voyage, and its transfer to the prison which would have turned the proverbial "whale in a butter-boat" into a disgusting reality. Suffocation is admittedly a painful experi- ence, congestion of the lungs is prolonged suffocation just short of death while it lasts, and eventuating in death when it is not relieved. The wretched whale in question was subjected to con- gestion of the lungs in its worst form during its voyage. Many persons, no doubt, admired the ingenuity which conveyed the creature across the Atlantic in a box lined with sea-weed, sustaining its miserable existence by pouring a bucketful of salt water upon it every five minutes, while they nev.er 'thought of the sufferings of the whale or the cruelty of its importers. It would be too much to ask of the multitude that they should, in this especial instance, adopt Mr. Charles Reade's proposed test of right and wrong, pleasure and pain, by putting themselves in the place of the whale on its way from 'its native ocean to the Westminster Aquarium, and practically submitting to a little temporary suffocation, just to see what it is like. It is possible, however, that some of those who have been misled into praising the energy and enterprise of the gentlemen who imported the happily deceased successor to Pongo, and intended rival to Zazel, might be induced to exorcise their imagination on the condition of a creature whose breathing apparatus, more complicated than their own, requires two el°. rnents for its healthful and painless exercise when condemned to infinitesimal supplies of both during a long voyage, under cir- cumstances of aggravated imprisonment.
An educational pretext for so barbarous and stupid an exhi- bition as a whale in an aquarium of the dimensions of the West- minster place of entertainment cannot be urged with any show of reason,—the models in the Kensington Museum teach all the public will ever care to learn about these great inmates of the great oceans. Against such an exhibition, a mere spectacle for the gratification Of a thoughtless curiosity, and for the attrac- tion of shillings, I hope you will protest ; and will permit me through your columns to call on all who hate cruelty, as a damnable sin in itself, a demoralising agent, sure and speedy in its action, and wide-spreading in its influence, to protest also.
—I am, Sir, &c., A CONSTANT READER AND DISCIPLE.
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