Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 May 1877 — Cruelty to Animals in Italy. [ARTICLE]

Cruelty to Animals in Italy.

The fourth annual meeting of the Roman Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was held recently, in Rome. The Marchioness DelGrillo, better known as Adelaide Ristori, is one of- the Board of Managers of this Society. The work of the Society has progressed rather slowly, and for two reasons: First, the imperfect state of the present law, and, secondly, the very unenlightened state of public opinion. One may commit any act of cruelty, whether publicly or in private, on animals which are not domestic. For instance, the small boys in Rome delight to wrap up a live mouse in cotton cloth well steeped in petroleum, then to set fire to it and indulge themselves and their trembling sweethearts with the spectacle of its agonies. The offense is not punishable, because tbe mouse is not a domestic animal. The same irrepressible youth may subject his grandmother’s cat to similar torture, and so long as lie does it in the back yaitf, or in the basement, or wherever you please, shut out from the general view, the outrage will enjoy the same immunity, while, if he gives poor pussy a public roasting, he can be punished for it. Most of the cattle brought to Rome for the market are kept without food or water for a period of twenty, thirty, sometimes forty hours before they are killed. This has arisen from the fact that the octroi duty, instead of being levied, as was the case four years ago, on each head ol cattle, is now exacted according to the weight of the slaughtered animal, so that the butcher believes it to be his interest to reduce the weight. Animals are certainly not in their norma] state of health when kept without food twenty»four hours, still less when the experiment is protracted to forty hours. There is no excuse for this, inasmuch as the Municipality of Home gives the butchers the benefit of a regular deduction of 20 per cent., supposed to represent the weight of the food which ought to be in the animal’s body. The Society and the Municipal Council have this matter under serious consideration. ,In the streets behind the Pantheon one may daily see exposed for sale miserable birds, which have had their eye-balls pierced with red-hot needles. These blind birds are employed as decoys to snare others of the feathery tribe. The action of the Society ha 9 been directed to put down this horrible practice. It is to the credit of the present Syndic of Naples that he has by order prohibited this barbarity.