Opposing the Forty-Hour Cattle Bill
By Editor
One of the bills before Congress, H. R. 12002, is for the purpose of amending section 4386 of the Revised Statutes, which prohibits railroad companies and other parties transporting cattle, sheep, swine, or other animals from one State to another, “confining the same in cars, boats, or vessels of any description for a longer period than twenty-eight consecutive hours, without unloading the same for rest, water, and feeding for a period of at least five consecutive hours, unless prevented from so unloading by storms or other accidental causes.” The amendment proposes to change the word “twenty-eight” to forty. To say nothing of the fact that such treatment of animals designed for food renders them wholly unfit for such purposes, the amendment in its end is horribly cruel. Every Congressman, unless basely interested, should be expected to vote it down. New York’s law provides only twenty-four consecutive hours of passage with ten hours of rest. John P. Haines, president of the A. S. P. C. A., Madison Avenue and Twenty-sixth Street, is applying for help to defeat the bill. We hope he will succeed.