The slaughter of animals for food / by John Galsworthy.

  • John Galsworthy
Date:
[1913]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The slaughter of animals for food / by John Galsworthy. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    THE SLAUGHTER OF ANIMALS FOR FOOD. By JOHN GALSWORTHY. THE thing is horrible, but it isnecessary. Why drag it out into the light ? Why make our thoughts miserable with contemplation of horrors which must exist ? If it were true that the present methods of slaugh- tering animals for food in this country were necessary, if all the saffering they involve was inevitable, I should be the first to say: Let us shut our eyes! For un- necessary suffering—even to ourselves—is anathema. It is just because this particular suffering is avoidable, and easily avoidable, that I feel we must face the matter if we want to call ourselves a decent people. I am a meat-eater—we are nearly all meat-eaters. Well ! We cannot sit down at present to a single meal without complicity in methods that produce a vast amount of preventible suffering to creatures for whom the least sensitive among us has at heart a certain friendly feeling. For, to those who say that they do not care for animals, that animals, even domestic ones, have no rights except such as for our own advantage we accord them, let me at once reply : I do not agree, but for the sake of argument, granted ; and then con- ceive, if you can, a world without cattle, sheep, and pigs, and tell me honestly whether you do not miss something friendly. No! the fact is, we, who are the descendants of countless generations to whom these animals have been literally the breath of life, can- not—even now that we have become such highly civilised townsmen—disclaim sensibility in their regard. Consider the magnitude -of this matter... The calculations of an expert give the following approxi- mate numbers of animals annually killed for food in
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