Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 August 1875 — Cruelty to Animals in Damascus. [ARTICLE]

Cruelty to Animals in Damascus.

I saw a donkey, staggering under a load fit for three, in a broiling sun. It passed our fountain and turned to drink. The man. grudging the moment, gave the donkey a push that sent it with a crash on the hard stones, crushed under its load, bleeding at the nose from thirst and overexertion. Maddened by the loss of time this would entail, the owner jumped upon its head and tried to stamp its brains out with his wooden boots. The servants, hearing the noise and seeing what,J was about, thought the human brute had attacked me, and set upon him like hornets. I did not stop them till he had received his deserts. Then we obliged him to unload his donkey, to let the beast drink, to wash its wounds, and to wait while it ate barley from my stable. I also sent a servant on horseback to tell the whole story to his master. The fellow had acted, in fact, as a Lancashire “purrer” treats his wife. A man brought me his favorite cat, with back and hind-quarters crushed by a boy, and asked me if I had any medicine to cure it. I said: “Do let me have it killed; one of my servants will blow Rs brains out—it is horribly crjiel to keep it alive one moment.” -'(‘May God forgive you such sinfiilness!” he replied. “I will put it in a room and let it die its natural death” (starvation). Half an hour afterward I saw that the

boys were torturing it in the street. I gent a servant to bring it in and to dispatch it with a bullet. The man was very much shocked. A boy brought a donkey to water at the fountain near our house. It was evidently worn out with fatigue and thirst and had either a strained back or a disease in the loins, so that the suspicion of anything touching its back was a terror to it. Every time the poor beast put down its head to drink the boy touched the tender place with a switch, which made the whole body quiver. It might have been a cabman establishing a “ raw.” I called a servant, who took the donkey away, letting it first eat and drink, and sent it back to the master. The boy was never sent again. I saw a girl of about twelve or thirteen jumping on a nest of kittens on the roadside, evidently enjoying the distressing mewing of the mother. I have often seen boys steal pups in the mother’s absence, carry them away perhaps for a quarter of an hour, play at ball with them on the hard stones and throw them down maimed and to starve. I have seen parents give pups and kittens to their children for this purpose to keep them quiet. The worst thing I saw was not done by a boy or by a brutal boor, but by an educated man, and, moreover, a European, in charge of an at Beyrout, lie used to tie up his horse, a good, quiet beast, and, with a cow-hide thong, beat its head, eyes and the most tender parts for ten minutes. His sister used to ride the horse, but lately it' had become fractious and ilf-tempered through bad usage. Anyone who understood animals could see that the poor brute’s heart was broken from beating and starvation, or from inability to eat. The first time I saw this cruelty I “ gave him a bit of my mind.” My dragoman (Mulhern Wardi) held me back. “ For God’s sake/Sitti, don't speak to him; he will strike you; he is a madman.” I begged him to consider his country, his profession, the European name before natives, his pretensions to be a gentleman. “ But look,” ho said, in a whining tone; “look what the horse is doing!” The poor beast was standing quite quiet, with despair in its eyes. 1 could not speak politely. “ You make me sick, sir. Your horse is broken-hearted—it hasn’t even courage to kick you.” He then said that he was of too nervous and sensitive a disposition; and I told him that in that case he ought to be locked up, for that he was a dangerous man to have charge of a public institution. I told his Consul-General what had occurred, and he agreed with me that it was a scandal that pained the whole community; but it was not an official matter which could be reported to the Embassador. I heard afterward that he had lost his appointment for roughness to those under him. It was a thousand pities, for he was a clever professional. 1 heard a story that is not bad if true —but I will not vouch for it —that a Eerson with a sense of humor sent for him, ut put a loaded revolver on the table close to hand. —_ — ——- “What is that for?” said the horse-tor-turer. “ Oh, that,” said the person, “ is in case you get one of your nervous and sensitive attacks while you are attending on me!” It was added that this episode did him food. — from “ The Inner Life of Syria, Palestine and the Holy Land."