Cruelty To Animals – Exposed – 1860s

Examples of multi-faceted UK & US collaboration. From a time when animal abuse was just starting to receive mass-media coverage.

Cruelty to Animals – “Which Are the Brutes?” by Alfred Rudolph Waud

An illustration exposing cruelty to animals, published in – Harper’s Weekly, A Journal of Civilization, February 23, 1867.

An item in our Ernest Bell Library –

Striking artwork – produced almost 150 years ago.

It would have been seen by many ‘educated’ people.

It exposed –

• the abuse of animals for gaming / gambling purposes.

• the abuse of animals working in transportation.

• the abuse of animals in food production.

• the abuse of stray animals.

The images –

From top left clockwise – Gamblers at a Cock Fight – Abusing Cart Horses at a Milk Depot – Gamblers at a Dog Fight – Abusing Stray Dogs – Torturing Cats – Taking Downer / Diseased Cows to Slaughter, the cart driver whipping the horse –

Central image – Horse Drawn Tram, the horse being whipped.

Reproduced at higher resolution below.

The Artist

Alfred Rudolph Waud (October 2, 1828 – April 6, 1891) was originally from London, UK. He had emigrated to the US – Wiki.

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The Period

A few months before –

~ Henry Bergh (August 29, 1813 – March 12, 1888) founded the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) in April, 1866, three days after the first effective legislation against animal cruelty in the United States was passed into law by the New York State Legislature. Bergh also prompted the formation, in 1874, of the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (MSPCC) ~ – more here.

 ASPCA pin

Another item in our Ernest Bell Library –

An ASPCA pin – for pinning to an ASPCA Inspector’s uniform.

From Henry Bergh’s era – 19th century – brass & vitreous enamel – 12 mm diameter.

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The print at higher resolution – to open click on it – then click again to enlarge it.

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The Production of Harper’s Weekly

Harper’s history – here.

~ The ancestral seed for Harper’s Weekly germinated in 1842 in London when the management of the London Illustrated News figured out how to illustrate the latest news stories on a timely basis. Traditionally, woodblock printing of illustrations was a labor-intensive process requiring three steps. First, a boxwood block, which was the exact thickness of the type, was polished smooth. Next, an artist used a pencil to draw his picture on the block in reverse, creating a mirror image. Then an engraver, using a graver and chisels, cut away all the wood not covered by pencil lines. 

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Our Projects

The Henry Salt Archive is one of our, almost completed, projects.

The Humanitarian League is our Hong Kong registered charity. It cares for The Ernest Bell Library, which was conceived in 1934.

The library is still strong & very active eighty years later –  its primary objectives are to: –

• Collect all of Ernest Bell’s book & non-book works and make them easily accessible to everyone.

• Collect the literature of vegetarianism and all the other humanitarian movements in which Ernest Bell was so deeply involved.

• Assist students and scholars in their research.

• Introduce all aspects of Ernest Bell’s life, including his writings, campaign work, influences and his circle of friends.

• Undertake our own research into missing aspects of Ernest Bell’s life and work.

We already have more than 300 pieces of Ernest Bell’s own writings.

We are also actively building a collection of examples of promotional material, campaign material, fundraising & marketing activities etc. – related to: –

1. veg(etari)an products.

2. veg(etari)an books & other publications.

3. veg(etari)an organisations.

4. veg(etari)an businesses.

5. animal rights organisations.

6. animal rights publications.

7. humanitarian organisations.

8. humanitarian publications.

9. rambling clubs run by members of the above groups & related publications.

10. the work of Richard St. Barbe Baker & the ‘Men of the Trees’ organization & its many sub-branches.

11. the history of Democratic Socialism.

12. pre-WW2 Trade Union badges / pins / ephemera.

There are currently more than 2,000 items in the Ernest Bell Library. We will complete the cataloging of the collection as & when adequate funds are available.

 “I have little doubt that the proposal for the establishment of an Ernest Bell Library, which would specialize in humanitarian and progressive literature, and so form a sort of centre for students, will meet with a wide response.” 

Henry S. Salt – writing in September 1934

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What is our connection with HappyCow?

HappyCow is now very ‘vegan focused’ and, in our opinion, is very effective at promoting vegan businesses & projects.

We have been writing reviews on HappyCow & submitting new listings & edits since 2007.

Our library team cooperates with, and post articles to, HappyCow, primarily because the site is busy with ‘our kind of people’. HappyCow often gets 1,000,000+ visits each month & our ‘message’ gets out to many more times the number of people than it did when we used to post only to our UK based site – www.henrysalt.co.uk.

We are deeply attached to the history humanitarianism – and especially attached to the history of veganism – ……which is know by many different names around the world. In 1905 Ernest Bell referred to veganism / ‘animal rights related plant eating’ as the –

‘…wholesome and invigorating diet of the arboreal ancestors from whom we inherit our canine teeth (wrongly so called),…’

– more.

Luckily for all of us, almost 40 years later, Fay K. & G. Allan Henderson, with input from Dorothy & Donald Watson thought up the terms –

‘Vegan & Veganism’

We now have more than 100 blog posts visible on HappyCow.

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If anyone would like more information about our projects, please send an email to: – 

humanitarianleague (at) outlook (dot) com 

– or message me  through HappyCow – 

https://www.happycow.net/blog/author/JohnnySensible/
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“A people without a history is like a tree without roots.”

April / May 2007 – Satya

Q) Colleen Patrick-Goudreau – You use the phrase “historical amnesia” to refer to the fact that contemporary animal activists—and society as a whole—know nothing of the legacy of animal activism in the U.S. What are some of the effects of having “historical amnesia”? Why is it so important to know our legacy?

A) Diane Beers – Animal advocacy has an amazing history, yet it is essentially an untold story. African American activists will often say, “A people without a history is like a tree without roots.” Indeed, if activists don’t know the history of their cause, they can have no sense of their movement’s struggles, long-term strategies, achievements and heroes. In addition, they can’t promote their long impressive movement to the public, and their opponents—the meat industry, medical research industry and the government—will fill the void. They have been the ones most aggressively and successfully constructing negative images and outright myths of animal advocacy that the public often believes.

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