For The Veriest Trifle I Have
Known Men To Smash The Poor Dumb Brute's Eyes Out With The Stock Of
The Whip, And I Have Been Very Near The Police Station More Than Once
When My Righteous Blood Compelled Me To Interfere.
Where, oh, where
is the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals?
Surely no
suffering creatures under the sun cry out louder for mercy than those
in Argentina?
As I have said, horses are left to die in the public streets. It has
been my painful duty to pass moaning creatures lying helplessly in
the road, with broken limbs, under a burning sun, suffering hunger
and thirst, for three consecutive days, before kind death, the
sufferer's friend, released them. Looking on such sights, seeing
every street urchin with coarse laugh and brutal jest jump on such an
animal's quivering body, stuff its parched mouth with mud, or poke
sticks into its staring eyes, I have cried aloud at the injustice.
The policeman and the passers-by have only laughed at me for my
pains.
In my experiences in South America I found cruelty to be a marked
feature of the people. If the father thrusts his dagger into his
enemy, and the mother, in her fits of rage, sticks her hairpin into
her maid's body, can it be wondered at if the children inherit cruel
natures? How often have I seen a poor horse fall between the shafts
of some loaded cart of bricks or sand! Never once have I seen his
harness undone and willing hands help him up, as in other civilized
lands. No, the lashing of the cruel whip or the knife's point is his
only help. If, as some religious writers have said, the horse will be
a sharer of Paradise along with man, his master, then those from
Buenos Ayres will feed in stalls of silver and have their wounds
healed by the clover of eternal kindness. "God is Love."
I have said the streets are full of holes. In justice to the
authorities I must mention the fact that sometimes, especially at the
crossings, these are filled up. To carry truthfulness still further,
however, I must state that more than once I have known them bridged
over with the putrefying remains of a horse in the last stages of
decomposition. I have seen delicate ladies, attired in Parisian
furbelows, lift their dainty skirts, attempt the crossing - and sink
in a mass of corruption, full of maggots.
In my description of Buenos Ayres I must not omit to mention the
large square, black, open hearses so often seen rapidly drawn through
the streets, the driver seeming to travel as quickly as he can. In
the centre of the coach is the coffin, made of white wood and covered
with black material, fastened on with brass nails. Around this
gruesome object sit the relatives and friends of the departed one on
their journey to the chacarita, or cemetery, some six miles out
from the centre of the city.
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