Genre:

Letter, Spoof

Subjects:

Animal Behaviour, Crime, Cruelty, Utilitarianism, Health, Class

    Begins by suggesting that 'the gentlemen who preside over that excellent association, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals' would do well to control the zeal of its employees. Describes the case of a clergyman who was in a magistrates' court defending a charge by an employee of the society that he maliciously poured turpentine on the hind legs of a dog. The counsel for the clergyman defended his client by arguing that he had treated the dog to stop it from being a nuisance in the church grounds. The judge resolved that the clergyman had not transgressed the law, although the author points out that the application of turpentine to a dog's skin harms the animal and is thus grounds for punishment. However, having read a British Medical Journal report of the infernal conditions in the Workhouse Infirmary, Cheltenham, urges the need to 'consider our own species in the first place' and calls for the establishment of a 'Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Paupers'. In a postscript presents an extract from a letter to The Times in which the clergyman explains and apologises for his treatment of the dog.