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JAINISM AND WORLD PROBLEMS
“We were in a dug-out with two candle stumps to work by, and a puddle of dirty water with which to wash the wound. But we took a piece of shell from his stomach, although we felt sure that our efforts were useless. .“ Three months afterwards I had a letter from the man, who had made a complete recovery."
This refers to the case of human beings, as in England high moral sentiments are nearly always intended fos buran beings, the animals being denied the fullest sympathy on various grounds (mostly Aimsy, of course). But in the Hindu mind which makes no distinction between man and animal, such as is made in European countries, there should be nothing to deny the same amount of protection or to prevent the attaching of the same degree of sanctity to animal life. If it is inmoral to put a human being "out of inisery," it is equally inhumane to take the life of a dog or a cat or a calf under similar circumstances. And if a man inay recover when the doctors have given him up, why not the poor wretch of an animal? Two good qualified surgeons had given up the man from whose stomach a piece of shell was taken out during the war, as Dr. Noel Scott reports in the article from the Daily Herald, yet he recovered to their astonishment. The poet Rudyard Kipling was similarly, it is said, believed to be dying when he suffered from double pneumonia, but he did not die! Many other cases like these can be found if one searches for them ; they are by no means exceptional. What right have we, then, to kill an animal when the best of specialists are liable to err so egregiously? I think the case of the animals becomes aggravated by our unwillingness to spend money over them beyond certain limits. I remember the case of a dappled grey mare of mine own whose life was despaired of by the veterinary surgeon who was called in to treat her, but which was in harness actually in a fortnight from the day when I was advised to shoot her! In many cases this financial motive remains only
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