CHRISTMAS CRUELTY.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
SER,—Your correspondent" S." is quite right in saying that suffering is in many cases the result of ignorance ; but un- fortunately for the turkeys, he would furnish us with an addi- tional example of it. The cruelty of the method of killing them which he misdesciibes either exists only in his own imagine- tion, or in the clumsiness of the operator. Your correspondent can have no practical experience of the various ways of killing poultry. That which he refers to is the simplest and most merciful, and is very largely practised in many parts of the country. The beak is opened, and a penknife driven through the roof of the month into the brain, and death is almost immediate. There is no necessity for slitting the tongue, as the bird is thoroughly bled from the wound in the month. As for the decapitation which "S." recommends, I have myself seen a headless fowl stagger about for some seconds, so that it cannot be relied upon as either a painless or instantaneous mode of death.—I am, Sir, &c., DLYN.
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