“Opposers of compassion urge: ‘If we should live on vegetable food, what shall we do with our _cattle_? What would become of them? They would grow so numerous they would be prejudicial to us--they would eat us up if we did not kill and eat them.’ But there is abundance of animals in the world whom men do not kill and eat; and yet we hear not of their injuring mankind, and sufficient room is found for their abode. Horses are not usually killed to be eaten, and yet we have not heard of any country overstocked with them. The raven and redbreast are seldom killed, and yet they do not become too numerous. If a decrease of cows, sheep, and others were required, mankind would readily find means of reducing them. Cattle are at present an article of trade, and their numbers are _industriously_ promoted. If cows are kept solely for the sake of milk, and if their young should become too numerous, let the evil be nipped in the bud. Scarcely suffer the innocent young to feel the pleasure of breathing. Let the least pain possible be inflicted; let its body be deposited entire in the ground, and let a sigh have vent for the calamitous necessity that induced the painful act.... Self-preservation justifies a man in putting noxious animals to death, yet cannot warrant the least act of cruelty to any being. By suddenly despatching one when in extreme misery, we do a kind office, an office which reason approves, and which accords with our best and kindest feelings, but which (such is the force of custom) we are denied to show, though solicited, to our own species. When they can no longer enjoy happiness, they may perhaps be deprived of life. Do not suppose that in this reasoning an intention is included of _perverting_ nature. No! some animals are savage and unfeeling; but let not _their_ ferocity and brutality be the standard and pattern of the conduct of _man_. Because _some_ of them have no compassion, feeling, or reason, are _we_ to possess no compassion, feeling, or reason?” In another section of his book Nicholson undertakes to expose the inconsistencies of flesh-eaters, and the strange illogicalness of the position of many protestors against various forms of cruelty, who condone the greatest cruelty of all--the (necessary) savagery of the butchers:-- “The inconsistencies of the conduct and opinions of mankind in general are evident and notorious; but when ingenious writers fall into the same glaring errors, our regret and surprise are justly and strongly excited. Annexed to the impressive remarks by Soame Jenyns, to be inserted hereafter, in examining the conduct of man to [other] animals, we meet with the following passage:--