With what pretension can a world call itself humane when in its codes all 'wild' animals are unprotected by laws, and may be treated with whatever brutality is desired? When it is a question for the dweller in a jungle to kill a wild beast or be killed himself, one can understand that he chooses the first of the two alternatives. But this is no excuse for the man in cities to drag a captured lion to make the sport of fools, and to perish wretchedly of diseased joints, thwarted longings, and the anguish of nostalgia. It is idle to speak of the civilisation of a world in which such things are possible. From a hygienic point of view alone, these poor tormented creatures, cooped up in filthy cages, breathing fetid air night and day, hearing each other's piteous cries, having no single want or instinct gratified, ill-fed, diseased, miserable, and ravaged by parasites, must be one of the most unwholesome centres of contagion conceivable. A polar bear is at this moment being taken through Europe for exhibition in a caravan; he is kept in a cage in which he cannot turn; he has a pan of water two inches deep, and a few ounces of bread as his only food! There is no animal which is not to be attached by kindness and justice shown to him. The lion of Rosa Bonheur fell into decline from grief at being sent from her keeping to that of the Jardin des Plantes when she was absent on a distant voyage. She returned to find him dying; he recognised her voice and opened his eyes with a feeble roar of pleasure, then laid his great head down upon her knees and died. No one who knows human nature by long experience can assert for a moment that its fidelity can be secured by benefits, or its sincerity insured by affection; but when kindness and regard are shown to 'the beasts which perish,' these never fail to give them back tenfold. Let me here tell a true history, which I should have told to Matthew Arnold had he been living then, with entire certainty of his sympathy. A little dog of Maltese breed, who belonged to my mother, was inconsolable at her death. For three weeks he refused all food, and was kept alive by nourishment artificially administered. He sat up, and begged, day after day, before her bed and before her favourite chair, until he dropped from sheer exhaustion. He wanted for nothing that I could give him; and no habit of his daily life was changed; but he was unhappy. Whenever the door opened he thought she entered. He ran and looked into every stranger's face. He knew everything which had belonged to her. His sorrow injured his health; his heart became weak, and he died of cardiac paralysis at six years old. What could human affection offer superior in fidelity and feeling? 'That loving heart, that patient soul, Had they indeed no longer span To run their course, and reach their goal, And read their homily to man?'