II. Legislation, where the protection of harmless animals is concerned, is the fit supplement and sequel to education, and the objections urged against it are for the most part unreasonable. It must inevitably fail in its purpose, say some; for how can the mere passing of a penal statute prevent the innumerable unwitnessed acts of cruelty and oppression which make up the great total of animal suffering? But the purpose of legislation is not merely thus preventive. Legislation is the record, the register, of the moral sense of the community; it follows, not precedes, the development of that moral sense, but nevertheless in its turn reacts on it, strengthens it, and secures it against the danger of retrocession. It is well that society should proclaim, formally and decisively, its abhorrence of certain practices; and I do not think it can be doubted, by those who have studied the history of the movement, that the general treatment of domestic animals in this country, bad as it still is, would be infinitely worse at this day but for the legislation that dates from the passing of “Martin’s Act” in 1822.
The further argument so commonly advanced, that “force is no remedy,” and that it is better to trust to the good feeling of mankind than to impose a legal restriction, is an amiable criticism which might doubtless be applied with great effect to a large majority of our existing penal enactments, but it is not very applicable to the case under discussion. For if force is ever allowable, surely it is so when it is applied for a strictly _defensive_ purpose, such as to safeguard the weak and helpless from violence. The protection of animals by statute marks but another step onward in that course of humanitarian legislation which, among numerous triumphs, has abolished slavery and passed the Factory Acts--always in the teeth of this same time-honoured objection that “force is no remedy.” Equally fatuous is the assertion that the administrators of the law cannot be trusted to adjudicate between master and “beast.” It was long ago stated by Lord Erskine that “to distinguish the severest discipline, for enforcing activity and commanding obedience in such dependents, from brutal ferocity and cruelty, never yet puzzled a judge or jury--never, at least, in my long experience.”