ANIMALS’ RIGHTS
ANIMALS’ RIGHTS
CONSIDERED IN RELATION TO
SOCIAL PROGRESS
BY
HENRY S. SALT
REVISED EDITION
LONDON
G. BELL AND SONS, LTD.
York House, Portugal Street
1922
TO MY FRIEND HOWARD WILLIAMS
AND OTHER HUMANITARIAN
COLLEAGUES
As a memorial of work done on behalf of the rightsof animals, it has been thought fitting, by membersand friends of the late Humanitarian League, that anew edition of this little book should be published inthe year that brings the centenary of “Martin’s Act,”the first legislation for the prevention of cruelty tothe non-human races.
Of the progress made in this branch of ethics, since1822, some account is incidentally given in the book;and during the last few years the advance has beensteadily continued. Attention has been drawn, forinstance, to the antiquated methods employed in theslaughter of animals for food; and this has correspondedwith an increase in the practice of vegetarianism.The treatment of other domestic animals, suchas pit ponies, and the worn-out horses exported tothe Continent, has stirred the public conscience; andat the same time the cruelty and folly of what istechnically known as “the wild animal industry”—thekidnapping of “specimens” for exhibition in zoologicalgardens, or as “performing animals” on the stage—arebecoming better understood.
Again, the disgust caused by the ravages of“murderous millinery” (a term first used as a chapter-headingin this book) has taken visible shape in therecent Act for the regulation of the plumage trade;and even “sport,” the last and dearest stronghold ofthe savage, has been seriously menaced, not only by[vi]the discontinuance of the Royal Buckhounds in 1901,but also lately by the emphatic condemnation ofpigeon-shooting.
The core of the contention for a recognition of therights of animals will be found in the following passageof a letter addressed by Mr. Thomas Hardy to theHumanitarian League in 1910:
“Few people seem to perceive fully as yet that the mostfar-reaching consequence of the establishment of the commonorigin of all species is ethical; that it logically involved areadjustment of altruistic morals, by enlarging, as a necessityof rightness, the application of what has been called ‘TheGolden Rule’ from the area of mere mankind to that of thewhole animal kingdom.... While man was deemed to bea creation apart from all other creations, a secondary ortertiary morality was considered good enough to practisetowards the ‘inferior’ races; but no person who reasonsnowadays can escape the trying conclusion that this is notmaintainable.”
It may be taken, perhaps, as a sign of the extensionof humane ideas that, since its first appearance in 1892,this essay on “Animals’ Rights” has passed throughnumerous editions, and has been translated intoFrench, German, Dutch, Swedish,