Friends of animals : an address delivered at North Berwick, East Lothian, on March 19th, 1910 / by J.L. Marjoribanks.

  • Marjoribanks, James Leslie, 1874-
Date:
1911
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Friends of animals : an address delivered at North Berwick, East Lothian, on March 19th, 1910 / by J.L. Marjoribanks. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    Friends of Animals. Ladies and Gentlemen, I think I have hardly ever made a speech in my life. T certainly have never delivered an address before to any audience; and you may believe me when I assure you that I should have been very glad to go back to India without volunteering to give an address on what is to some people rather a sore subject, if I had not felt that I had something to say which I was qualified to say, and which wanted saying very badly indeed. Now, there is an old maxim that tells people that if there are subjects on which they might perhaps disagree, the best thing for them to do is to find something to speak of first, which they are sure to have in common. Well, if that is so, let me say that I hope that at least a good many of my audience are fond of animals, for I shall be with them there. Of course, we are not all so fond of one animal as of another; but at any rate so far as dogs and cats are concerned there is no one who has more reason to be fond of those animals than a man like myself, who knows what it is to have travelled about from strange place to strange place without having seen a white face for sometimes months at a time. When you do that, you learn to appreciate what a companion in loneliness a good dog or cat is. Even in this country, and especially now that there are such exquisite breeds of dog3 and cats, there is a temptation which is apt to assail one, the temptation to think more of one’s dog or one’s cat than of some human beings. Well if there is anyone who is exposed to that temptation it is an Indian district officer. When you have been surrounded all day by strange natives, natives who want to get something out of you, natives whom you want to get to do something that they don’t want to do, and when you sit down alone in your tent after dinner, you are very apt to stroke the head of your dog or your cat and to say “ I think a sight more of you than I do of all those human beings.” There is another subject on which I might touch, and perhaps find less unanimity in my audience, the subject of sport. Now, I say nothing against spoit. “ Nimrod was a mighty hunter before the Lord,” and there are mighty hunters before the Lord to-day. Some men in my own profession are sportsmen. But there are some members of it, and I am one of them, who do not shoot just because our work makes us realize a little too well what pain means ; it spoils the fun of shooting. Now, I make no virtue of the fact that I prefer to see the birds and beasts enjoying themselves. But. as I do miss a good deal of fun,