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James Leigh Hunt1784-1859
The ExaminerProspectus of the ExaminerAs to those selfish and vulgar cowards, whether jockies, who will run a horse to death, or cock-fighters, who sit town to a table on which fowls are served up alive, as to those miserable ruffians, whether the ornament of a goal or the disgracers of a noble house, who thank God for giving them strength by endeavouring to annihilate the strength of others, who like a Hottentot beauty ,valued themselves upon a few bones, and call fighting for a few guineas English spirit, they are probably out of the reach of literary ridicule which must be read before it is felt, but we shall use our strongest endeavour to hold up them and their admires to the contempt of others who might mistake their murderous business for manliness. What ! Shall English noblemen crowd the highways to admire the exploits of a few thieves and butchers! Shall they rush from the Court and Senate to enrich a few sturdy vagabonds with the labour of their virtuous peasantry to shout over a fallen brute and be astonished at the sublime merit which is excelled by the leg of a dray horse? What an amiable vivacity! (Autobiography of Leigh Hunt, Prospectus of the Examiner)
The Reflector
Art. XI.—Account of a Familiar Spirit…Shewing the Carnivorous Duties of all Rational Being and the True End of Philosophy."Will thou never be philosopher enough to leave off sacrificing calf's flesh?" [asked] the Prince of Nightmares.…You must know, Mr. Reflector, that the souls of tormented animals survive after death and become instruments of punishment for mankind.…Fish crimped alive, lobsters boiled alive, and pigs whipped to death, become the most active and formidable spirits
Art. XIX.—Edax on AppetiteI remember a pretty apologue, which Mandeville tells very much to this purpose in his Fable of the Bees:—"'tis only mischievous man, that can make death a sport. Nature taught your stomach to crave nothing but vegetables—Your violent fondness to change, and grater eagerness after novelties, has prompted you to the destruction of animals without justice or necessity.—Your squeamish stomach, in which the digestive heat is weak and inconsiderable, won't so much as admit of the most tender parts of them, unless above half the concoction has been performed by artificial fire beforehand; and yet what animal have you spare, to satisfy the caprices of a languid appetite" Languid I say; for what is man's hunter if compared with the Lion's? "—Allowing for the Lion not having a prophetic instinct to take in every lusus naturae that was possible of the human appetite, he was, generally speaking in the right.
Art. XIX.—Hespita on the Immoderate Indulgene of the Pleasures of the PalateWe have a theory, that animal food is neither wholesome nor natural to man…Our children our perfect little Pythagoreans: it would do you good to see them in their nursery stuffing their dried fruits, figs, raisins, and milk which is the only approach to animal food which is allowed. They have no notion how the substance of a creature that ever had life can become food for another creature.…In this happy state of innocence we have kept their minds, not allowing them to go into the kitchen, or to hear of any preparations for the dressing of animal food, or even to know that such things are practised.
The Indicator
AnglingThe anglers are a race of men who puzzle us. We do not mean for their patience, which is laudable, nor for their infinite non-success of some of them, which is desirable.…But the anglers boast of the innocence of their pastime; yet it puts fellow-creatures to the torture. The pique themselves on their meditative faculties; and yet their only excuse is a want of though. It is this that puzzles us.
Mists and FogsNothing can be more disgustingly pitiable than a gross arrogant Englishman, whoi in the plentitude of his egotism talks against vanity; and in the midst of the most selfish and sorid vices,…money-scraping, or gormandizing, or drinking, or cock-fighting,…thinks himself entitled to despise other nations, whose vices are rather the excess of sympathy.
On the Sight of ShopsA poulterer's is a dead-bodied business, with it's birds and their lax necks. We dislike to see a bird any where but in the open air, alive, and quick. Of all creatures, restraint and death becomes it's winged vivacity the least. For the same reason we hate aviaries. One of the shops we like least is an angling repository, with it's rod for a sign, and a fish dancing in the agonies of death at the end of it. We really cannot see what equanimity there is in jerking a lacerated carp out of water by the jaws, merely because if has not the power of making a noise; for we presume that the most philosophic of anglers would hardly delight in catching a shrieking fish.
On the Slow Rise of the Most Rational OpinionsA friend was observing to us a short time since, that he was not aware of the existence of any denouncement of cruelty to animals, till Pope wrote a paper on it in the Guardian. Shakespeare, who says every thing, has said something about "the poor beetle whom we tread upon, feeling a pang as great as when the giant dies;"…His age indeed, so great and humane in many respects, was so insensible in this particular point.
Coaches and HorsesWe will not say that Plutarch's good-natured observation about taking care of one's old horse, did more fro that class of retired servants than all the gravers lessons of philosophy. For it is philosophy which first sets people thinking and them some of them put it into more popular shape. But we will venture to say, that Plutarch's observation saved many a steed of antiquity a superfluous thump… Next to ancient cause, the inevitable progress of event, and to the practical part of Christianity…the kindliness of modern philosophy is more immediately owing to the great writers of Europe, in whose schools we have all been children: to Voltaire in France, and Shakespeare in England7#8230;And with Shakespeare's assistance, the time has arrived, when we can afford to acknowledge the horse for a fellow-creature and treat him as one.
The Rebellion of the Beasts: o, the Ass is Dead! Long Live the Ass!!!When your lordship has perused this work, you will see how absurd and dangerous it is to indulge in that vile sort of sentiment, which has lately sprung up, and which would prevent country gentlemen from indulging in the noble and truly aristocratic amusement of "cruelty to animals." What can Mr. Martin mean by his idle paradoxes? Is it not as absurd to prevent cruelty to animals, as to endeavour to abolish game laws? What can be more wicked? Must not the country gentlemen be encouraged? How can your persuade them to stay in the country, and set such good examples to the lower orders, (as we all know they do) if you do not allow them their ancient and hallowed amusements, of murdering fowls by thousands on the first of August; of badger-baiting; of the cock-pit; of dog-fights; and flogging their dogs every day, all winter through hare-hunting, and all the other little sanguinary delights, in which young squires take such pleasure, and for which they are so famed? What is a country gentleman worth, if he may not send poachers to the Bay, for interfering with him in the right of cruelty to animals? Are not our virtues all founded on these noble, gymnastic, athletic, gentlemanly amusements? Do we not, my lord, owe all our manly courage to "the Fancy?" Are not our tall peasantry, our "country's pride," all trained up in vigour and magnanimity by bull-baiting, and dog-fights? Oh! my lord! sentiment will be the ruin of us; and though there is a sure majority in the house yet, some day or other I perceive that humanity will sap the foundation of these things; will abridge the country gentleman of their pleasures, and thus bring down the crown, the mitre, and the law, in one common ruin, and "great will be the fall thereof!" This allegory, however, will be some slight check to the mania of kindness to man and beast, which continually is goading the aristocracy, like a heavy collar on a sore neck. It will shew how foolish and wicked it its, to indulge in theories that may tend to so much mischief; and will prove, to your lordship's satisfaction, that the adage holds good with regard to animal; for if you give them and inch, they will take and ell; and there is not saying, what confusion and mischief may be brought on the kingdom, if the dangerous doctrines of humanity are preached to beasts in their present degraded situation; who, without any means of weighing well the truth, will of course receive with greediness the visionary tales of designing demagogues; and, believing all that is said, burst out at last into open and dreadful rebellion.… …Your lordship knows that we all live for what we can get; that virtue and religion are not the object or our wishes; that the fees and delays of the law are more profitable than piety, and sentiment; and that we are never satisfies, till we have got as much as it is possible to receive. What then, I would ask, is the criterion of happiness, but plenty?…Your lordship and myself will not, I trust, acknowledge that stupid system of kindness to man and beast, that is deluging the world with its madness and its mischief; and I do hope, nay I feel confident, that we shall not be so far degraded, as to be termed philanthropists when we have descended into the grave. The rage of the liberals and the radicals will be very great against this little work; and I have not doubt that it will be seriously reviewed in the Edinburgh and Westminster, to throw and odium if possible on the memory of the author, who, however, is far beyond the reach of their malice.…
Imaginary Conversation of Swift and PopeThe talk fell upon cruelty to animals; upon which Mr. Pope made some excellent observations. The Dean said he once asked a scrub who was fishing if he ever caught a Scream. The man protested he had never heard of such a fish. "What!" says the Doctor, "you an angler, and never heard of the fish that gives a shriek when coming out of the water?…'Tis the only fish had had a voice; and a sad, dismal one it is." The man asked who could be so barbarous as to angle for a creature that shrieked? "that," says the Doctor, "is another matter: but what do you think of fellows that I have seen, whose only reason for hooking and tearing all the fish they can get at, is that they do not scream?"
Tatler
On SportsmenWe regard sportsmen in general as a dull-headed race of men, who are merely in search of a sensation, because they cannot procure one by humaner or more intellectual means. They will disappear iwth the progress of education, as hares and partridges do from under their pursuit. We consider them dull-headed, not only because in ninety-nine instances out of a hundred, they are notoriously reckoned so among their neighbours, but because nothing in general but sheer want of refection and imagination could induce them to confound the hunting of agonised and inoffensive animals, and the splintering of the legs and things of birds, with a "manly sport." Where an intelligent man sophisticates on the subject, he does it in the avowed teeth of his understanding, and upon principles which he would not allow to apply to his own case; and where a humane as well as intelligent man sophisticates, he only shews the marvellous effect of habit. Propose to him a new piece of cruelty, unconnected with his sport, though perpetrated for the sport of another, and he recoils from it. You often see this inconsistency in the pages of sportsmen. Among other argument which we never knew hare-hunters, and fowlers, and anglers, to get over, is this:—that they permit themselves to treat animals as they do, not because the latter are unsusceptible of the feelings of pain and anguish, but simply because they cannot express them. If a hare or a stag could remonstrate in words, nay, if they went toiling their heart out over hill and dale, with a continued doleful sound, or if tench and carp shrieked as they came out of the water, those creatures would never be killed for sport. The very reason ,therefore, which furnishes as additional inducement to people in general to spare what is emphatically called a "poor dumb creature," becomes with these people and instinctive ground for tormenting them. If effeminacy be added to this cruelty, or a boasted love of ease, and superiority of intelligence, and if habit did not account for everything, there is no set of men whom we should hold in greater loathing and contempt than anglers: and yet there are unquestionably many amiable men among them, who, as the phrase is, would not "hurt a fly,"—that is to say, on a window. At the end of a string, the case is altered. So marvellous are the effects of custom and education. Consoling thought, nevertheless ! for if custom and education have been so marvellous in reconciling intelligent men to absurdities, and humane men to cruelty, what will they not effect, when they shall be on the side of justice; and when reason, humanity, and enjoyment, shall become the three new graces of the civilized world. It has been said that absurdities are necessary to man; but nobody thinks o, who is not their victim. With occupation, leisure, and healthy amusement, all the world would be satisfied.
Leigh Hunt's London Journal
Izzak Walton and AnglingWe hate "pretences" to feeling, and grant the anglers may have much to which they do not pretend; but why do they pretend to more than other people, and at the same time hazard cruelties (to say the least of it) which other lovers of quiet and the county find much more inconsistent than compatible with their boasted "peace," and "innocence," and contemplative enjoyment.
The Elephant in the Zoological GardensThe elephant…if he were suddenly gifted with speech, and we asked him whether he liked his imprisonment, the first words he would utter would unquestionably be—"Why, no, sir."
Table-TalkSportsmen and CustomThere are unquestionably many amiable men among sportsmen, who, as the phrase is, would not "hurt a fly"—that is to say, on a window. At the end of a string, the case is altered. So marvelous are the effects of custom and education. Consoling thought, nevertheless ! for if custom and education have been so marvelous in reconciling intelligent men to absurdities, and humane men to cruelty, what will they not effect when they shall be on the side of justice? when reason, humanity, and enjoyment shall become the three new graces of the civilized world? It has been said that absurdities are necessary to man; but nobody thinks so who is not their victim. With occupation, leisure, and healthy amusement, all the world would be satisfied. The Singing Man Kept By the BirdsA traveler came into an unknown country where the people were more like birds than men, and twice as tall as the largest ostriches. They had beaks and wings, and lived in gigantic nests, upon trees of a proportionate size. The traveler, who was unfortunately a capital singer, happed to be indulging in one of his favourite songs, when he was overheard by a party of this monstrous people who caught him and carried him home. Here he lead such as made him a thousand times wish for death. The bird family did not seem to be cruel to one another, or even intentionally so to him; for they soon found out what he liked to eat, and gave him plenty of it. They also flattened him a corner of the nest for a bed; and were very particular in keeping out of his way a pet tiger which threw him into the most dreadful agitations. But in all other respects, whether out of cruelty or fondness, or want of though, they teased him to death. His habitation, at best, was totally unfit for him. His health depended upon exercise, particularly as he was a traveler; but he could not take any in the nest, because it was hollow like a basin; and had he attempted to step out of it, he would have broken his neck. Sometimes they would handle him in their great claws, till his heart beast as if it would come through his ribs. Sometimes they kissed and fondled him with their horrid beaks. Sometimes they pulled his nose this way and that, till he gaped and cried out for anguish; upon which they would grin from ear to ear, and stroke back his head, till the hairs came out by roots. If he did not sing, they would pull his arms about, and cruelly spread out his fingers, as if to discover what was the matter with him; and, when he did sing to beguile his sorrows, he had the mortification of finding that they looked upon it as a mark of his contentment and happiness. They would sing themselves (for some of them were pretty good singing-birds for so coarse a species), to challenge him, as it were, to new efforts. At length our poor traveler feel sick of a moral distemper, the termination of which was luckily hastened by the modes they took to cure it. "Wretch that I am!" cried he, in his last moments, "I used to think it unmanly to care about keeping a goldfinch, or even a lark; but all my manliness, in a like situation, can not prevent me from dying of torture." Imaginary Conversations of Pope and SwiftThe talk fell upon cruelty to animals; upon which Mr. Pope made some excellent observations. The Dean said he once asked a scrub who was fishing if he ever caught a Scream. The man protested he had never heard of such a fish. "What!" says the Doctor, "you an angler, and never heard of the fish that gives a shriek when coming out of the water?…'Tis the only fish had had a voice; and a sad, dismal one it is." The man asked who could be so barbarous as to angle for a creature that shrieked? "that," says the Doctor, "is another matter: but what do you think of fellows that I have seen, whose only reason for hooking and tearing all the fish they can get at, is that they do not scream?"
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[1807-1837] Romantic Age
[1837-1876] Victorian-Early
Animal Welfare-Animal Rights Activists-Advocates-Authors Legislators and Educators continuing struggle for Animal Rights, Animal Welfare and Humane Education Against Cruelty to Animals can be seen throughout history in the words and actions of so many individuals. As Primary Source Historical Literature on Animal Rights, Animal Welfare & Humanity Against Cruelty to Animals is made available online, our Animal Rights Timeline, Humane Education Resource, Library-Archive of Primary Source Historical Literature will include not only the more noted events and authors of Animal Rights and the Humane Movement Against Cruelty to Animals, but lesser known advocates as well. |
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1808-1821 | James Leigh Hunt, editor of the 
