Читать книгу The Rural Life of England - William Howitt - Страница 8

I have not attempted to defend the hunter, the courser, or even the shooter, in the preceding chapter, from the charge of cruelty which is perpetually directed against them—they are a sturdy, and now a very intelligent people; often numbering amongst them many of our principal senators, authors, and men of taste, and very capable of vindicating themselves; but I must enact the shield-bearer for a moment, for that very worthy and much-abused old man, Izaak Walton, and the craft which he has made so fashionable. Spite even of Lord Byron’s jingle about the hook and gullet, and a stout fish to pull it, they may say what they will of the old man’s cruelty and inconsistency—the death of a worm, a frog, or a fish, is the height of his infliction, and what is that to the ten thousand deaths of cattle, sheep, lambs, fish, and fowl of all kinds, that are daily perpetrated for the sustenance of these same squeamish cavillers! They remind me of a delicate lady, at whose house I was one day, and on passing the kitchen door at ten in the morning, saw a turkey suspended by its heels, and bleeding from its bill, drop by drop. Supposing it was just in its last struggles from a recent death-wound, I passed on, and found the lady lying on her sofa overwhelmed in tears over a most touching story. I was charmed with her sensibility; and the very delightful conversation which I held with her, only heightened my opinion of the goodness of her heart. On accidentally passing by the same kitchen door in the afternoon, six hours afterwards, I beheld, to my astonishment, the same turkey suspended from the same nail, still bleeding, drop by drop, and still giving an occasional flutter with its wings! Hastening to the kitchen, I inquired of the cook, if she knew that the turkey was not dead. “O yes, sir,” she replied, “it won’t be dead, may-happen, these two hours. We always kill turkeys that way, it so improves their colour; they have a vein opened under the tongue, and only bleed a drop at a time!” “And does your mistress know of this your mode of killing turkeys?” “O yes, bless you sir, it’s our regular way; missis often sees ’em as she goes to the gardens—and she says sometimes, ‘Poor things! I don’t like to see ’em, Betty; I wish you would hang them where I should not see ’em!’” I was sick! I was dizzy! It was the hour of dinner, but I walked quietly away,

And ne’er repassed that bloody threshold more!

I say, what is Izaak Walton’s cruelty to this, and to many another such perpetration on the part of the tender and sentimental? What is it to the grinding and oppression of the poor that is every day going on in society,—to the driving of wheels and the urging of steam-engines, matched against whose iron power thousands daily waste their vital energies? What is it to the laying on of burdens of expense and trouble by the exactions of law, of divinity, of custom,—burdens grievous to be borne, and which they who impose them, will not so much as touch with one of their little fingers?

They sit at home and turn an easy wheel,

And set sharp racks to work to pinch and peel.—John Keats.

These things are done and suffered by human beings, and then go the very doers of these things, and cry out mightily against the angler for pricking the gristle of a fish’s mouth!

I do not mean to advocate cruelty—far from it! I would have all men as gentle and humane as possible; nor do I argue that because the world is full of cruelty, it is any reason that more cruelty should be tolerated: but I mean to say, that it is a reason why there should not be so much permission to the greater evils, and so much clamour against the less. Is there more suffering caused by angling than by taking fishes by the net? Not a thousandth,—not a ten thousandth part! Where one fish is taken with a hook, it may be safely said that a thousand are taken with the net: for daily are the seas, lakes, and rivers swept with nets; and cod, haddock, halibut, salmon, crabs, lobsters, and every species of fish that supplies our markets, are gathered in thousands and ten thousands—to say nothing of herrings and pilchards by millions. Over these there is no lamentation; and yet their sufferings are as great—for the suffering does not consist so much in the momentary puncture of a hook, as in the dying for lack of their native element. Then go these tender-hearted creatures and feast upon turtles that have come long voyages nailed to the decks of ships in living agonies; upon crabs, lobsters, prawns, and shrimps, that have been scalded to death; and thrust oysters alive into fires; and fry living eels in pans, and curse poor anglers before their gods for cruel monsters, and bless their own souls for pity and goodness, forgetting all the fish-torments they have inflicted!

“Ay, but”—they turn round upon you suddenly with what they deem a decisive and unanswerable argument—“Ay, but they cannot approve of making the miseries of sentient creatures a pleasure.” What! is there no pleasure in feasting upon crabs that have been scalded, and eels that have been fried alive? In sucking the juices of an oyster, that has gaped in fiery agony between the bars of your kitchen grate? But the whole argument is a sophism and a fallacy. Nobody does seek a pleasure, or make an amusement of the misery of a living creature. The pleasure is in the pursuit of an object, and the art and activity by which a wild creature is captured, and in all those concomitants of pleasant scenery and pleasant seasons that enter into the enjoyment of rural sports;—the suffering is only the casual adjunct, which you would spare to your victim if you could, and which any humane man will make as small as possible. And over what, after all, do these very sensitive persons lament? Over the momentary pang of a creature, which forms but one atom in a living series, every individual of which is both pursuing and pursued, is preying, or is preyed upon. The fish is eagerly pursuing the fly, one fish is pursuing the other, and so it is through the whole chain of living things; and this is the order and system established by the very centre and principle of love, by the beneficent Creator of all life. The too sensitively humane, will again exclaim—“Yes, this is right in the inferior animals: it is their nature, and they only follow the impulse which their Maker has given them.” True; but what is right in them, is equally right in man;—the argument applies with double force in his case. For, is there no such impulse implanted in him? Let every sportsman answer it; let the history of the world answer it; let the heart of every nine-tenths of the human race answer it. Yes, the very fact that we do pursue such sports, and enjoy them, is an irrefragable answer. The principle of chase and taking of prey, which is impressed on almost all living things, from the minutest insect to the lion of the African desert, is impressed with double force on man. By the strong dictates of our nature, by the very words of the Holy Scriptures, every creature is given us for food; our dominion over them, is made absolute. The amiable Cowper asserted that dogs would not pursue game, if they were not taught to do so. We admit the excellent nature of the man, but every day proves that, in this instance, he was talking beyond his knowledge. Every one who knows anything of dogs, knows, that if you bring them up in a town, and keep them away from the habits of their own class to their full growth, the moment they get into the country they will pursue each their peculiar game, with the utmost avidity, and after their own manner. There is then, unquestionably, an instinctive propensity in one animal to prey upon another—in man pre-eminently so—and it is not the work of wisdom to quench this tendency, but to follow it with all possible gentleness and humanity.