It is certain that animals
that are driven long distances along dirty roads, cattle, sheep, and fowl
that are cooped up for many weary hours in railway trucks,
simply that they may reach a distant market and be slaughtered
to gratify perverted human appetites, really suffer more than the cock or bull
who may be killed or wounded in a fight with others of his own kind.
What about the sufferings of pugilists who take part in the prize-fights,
in which so many thousands in the United States delight? It cannot be pity,
therefore, for the birds or beasts, which makes the authorities
forbid cockfighting and bull-baiting. It must be that although these
are exhibitions of courage and skill, the exhibition is degrading
to the spectators and to those who urge the creatures to fight.
But what is the difference, so far as the spectator is concerned,
between watching a combat between animals or birds and following
a vivid dramatization of cruelty on the stage? In the latter case
the mental sufferings which are portrayed are frequently more harrowing
than the details of any bull- or cockfight. Such representation, therefore,
unless a very clear moral lesson or warning is emblazoned throughout the play,
must have the effect of making actors, actresses and spectators
less sympathetic with suffering. Familiarity breeds insensibility.
What I have said of melodrama applies also, though in a lesser degree,
to books, and should be a warning to parents to exercise proper supervision
of their children's reading.
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