UNNATURAL AND SENSELESS AFFECTION FOR ANIMALS.
By T.
The Illustrated London News says: “A lady has written an eloquent letter about her Siamese cat, recently deceased. This accomplished animal always slept at night with its owner’s left ear in its mouth. The lady tried to make her right ear an acceptable sleeping draught, but in vain. The cat would have the left ear or none. . . . If, as I suspect, the singular affection of the lamented puss from Siam was due to a rare gift of sympathy in the disconsolate owner, why doesn’t she now bestow it on the brotherhood of man, which is none too rich in that quality?” Everybody should be kind to animals, and their comfort should be carefully looked after. And to the humane man or woman one of the most enjoyable pleasures of life is to care for these domestic creatures that God has so wisely placed under the charge and supervision of man. But there is nothing more unendurably disgusting than the gross, sentimental caressing that some people lavish on cats and dogs. When innocent children are starving for food, and with no one to show them sympathy or tenderness, it is a poor time to waste one’s energies by bestowing labored affection on brutes that do not have sense enough to appreciate it. Let some of these sentimental women take an orphan boy or girl and give the same kindness and care to the child that she has been giving to the cat or dog, and she will find it a far greater joy, and then she can know, too, that she is doing some good in the world. T.