vessel, on a voyage from Holland to the Thames, as to cause the sheep much pain and suffering; carriers and cattle-barge owners are under the same legal obligations.

In regard to cows, one placard cautions persons sending them to market with the udder greatly distended with milk, and from which the poor animals evidently suffer much pain. Cattle rearers are told that penalties have been enforced against one of their body for sawing off the horns of fourteen heifers so close to the head as to cause blood to flow in considerable quantity, and to make the animals stamp and moan; the object of such a mode of cutting being to increase the market value of the horns. Butchers are reminded that it is a punishable offence to bleed calves to death merely for the sake of giving additional whiteness to veal. Consigners and carriers are alike reminded that the Act of 1849 imposes fines or imprisonment as a punishment for conveying animals in such way as to subject them to unnecessary pain or suffering; the neglect to give proper food and water to the animals, whether coming to market, at market, or in removal from market, is announced in another hand-bill to be an infringement of the same statute.

Drovers, by another hand-bill or placard, are cautioned against urging on cattle which by lameness are unfitted to travel along the roads and streets; and against striking animals on the legs so violently as to lame them: both are practices to which drovers are too prone, and both are punishable. Farmers, graziers, and salesmen are alike warned that the season of the year should be taken into account in the transport of shorn sheep. 'It is hardly conceivable that respectable farmers and graziers, merely for the sake of profit, can in the months of December, January, February, March, or April, cruelly strip a dumb animal of that warm woollen coat which the goodness of God has provided more abundantly in winter to protect it from the cold weather; or that any English salesman will lay himself open to a criminal charge of aiding or continuing the offence by exposing shorn animals for sale at such inclement seasons.'

Horses and donkeys find a place in the safeguards which the Society endeavours to provide, by disseminating placards and hand-bills pointing out the penalties for cruelty or neglect. It is an offence against the laws to work a horse in an omnibus, cab, or other vehicle when in an infirm or worn-out state. It is an offence to beat a horse in a stable with a degree of severity amounting to cruelty, merely to make it obedient, or still worse, through an impulse of angry passion. It is an offence to set a horse to drag a cart or wagon loaded with a weight beyond his strength; many coal-merchants and their carmen have been prosecuted and fined for this unfeeling conduct. It is an offence to cruelly beat and over-ride poor donkeys; useful animals which seem fated to be the victims of very hard treatment in the world. It is a significant fact that one placard is addressed to 'excursionists and others:' those who have witnessed the treatment of donkeys by their drivers, at Hampstead Heath, Blackheath, and the humbler grades of sea-side places where holiday people assemble, will know what this means. The Society aid the inspectors of mines, or are aided by them, in bringing to justice truck-drivers and others for working horses and ponies in an unfit state in coal-pits.

It was not likely that dogs would be left out of sight by the Society; the maltreating of such animals is the subject of some of the cautionary placards, especially in localities where rough persons, prone to dog-tormenting, are known to be numerous. Cats are the subjects concerning which other warnings are given, in regard to torturing or cruelly worrying. Fishmongers are reminded that it is a punishable offence which many persons commit of 'putting living lobsters and crabs into cold water, and then placing them on a fire until the water is heated to boiling temperature, thereby causing them to endure horrible and prolonged suffering.'

That the feathered tribes should share the protection which the issuing of these placards is intended to subserve, is natural enough; seeing that the Sea-bird, Wild-bird, and Wild-fowl Acts were due in great measure to the Society. One placard states that it is a punishable offence to kill or wound any such birds (including the young in nests) within the prohibited period; and that those who sell such killed birds are also punishable. Another placard administers a similar warning in regard to wild-fowl, enumerating thirty-six species, all of which are to be safe from the gun, the snare, and the net from the 15th of February to the 10th of July, under penalties which are prescribed in the Act of 1876. Bird-fanciers are reminded that one of their fraternity was imprisoned for fourteen days for depriving a chaffinch of its sight as a means of improving its singing. Poultry-dealers are, in another hand-bill, cautioned against plucking live poultry, a cruel practice which, if proved, subjects the offender to three months' imprisonment. Carrying live fowls to market by their legs, with their heads hanging downwards; and exposing fowls to hot sunshine with their legs tied together—have brought the offenders into trouble. In another placard the patrons of pigeon-matches are warned that occasional cruelties practised by them or their servants come within the scope of the law. In one of the Society's publications, the cruelty of bearing-reins for carriage-horses is significantly pointed out.

The Society has been encouraged in its benevolent exertions by a letter from Her Majesty the Queen, addressed in 1874 to the Earl of Harrowby, in his capacity as President. There was an assembly in London of foreign delegates representing similar associations, on the occasion of the holding of the half-century jubilee of the parent Society. Her Majesty requested the President to give expression publicly to her warm interest in the success of the efforts made here and abroad for the purpose of diminishing the cruelties practised on dumb animals. 'The Queen hears and reads with horror of the sufferings which the brute creation often undergo from the thoughtlessness of the ignorant, and she fears also sometimes from the experiments in pursuit of science. For the removal of the former the Queen trusts much to the progress of education; and in regard to the pursuit of science, she hopes that the advantage of those anæsthetic discoveries from which man has derived so much benefit himself, in the alleviation of suffering, may be fully extended to the lower animals. Her Majesty rejoices that the Society awakens the interest of the young by the presentation of prizes for essays connected with the subject, and hears with gratification that her son and daughter-in-law shew their interest and sympathy by presenting those prizes at your meetings.'

Looking to the distinguished patronage of the Society from Her Majesty downwards, its vast array of supporters, and the large number of Societies which it has helped to originate at home and abroad, we naturally rely upon it for promoting a consolidation and expansion of the laws against cruelty to animals. These laws, as has been seen, are composed of shreds and patches, brought into existence with difficulty, and in many respects imperfect. The time appears to have come when the whole should be combined in a statute applicable to all parts of the United Kingdom. That certain actions should be deemed cruelties punishable by law in England and not in Scotland, is anything but creditable, and not a little ludicrous. This is a point to which the attention of legislators should be seriously invited. From the fragmentary and confused condition of the statutes, we have experienced much difficulty in ascertaining what, as a whole, the law really is. This chaotic state of things detracts, we think, not a little from the glory which may be freely claimed by the English for their legislation in behalf of animals. A consolidated Act with all