"All right," she agreed; "but I can tell you more about the beasts without distracting your mind, I hope. For one thing, we have no longer any menageries."
"What?" I cried. "No menageries! How absurd! They were certainly educational, and a great pleasure to children—and other people."
"Our views of education have changed you see," she replied; "and our views of human relation to the animal world; also our ideas of pleasure. People do not think it a pleasure now to watch animals in pain."
"More absurdity! They were not in pain. They were treated better than when left wild," I hotly replied.
"Imprisonment is never a pleasure," she answered; "it is a terrible punishment. A menagerie is just a prison, not for any offense of the inmates, but to gratify men in the indulgence of grossly savage impulses. Children, being in the savage period of their growth, feel anew the old satisfaction of seeing their huge enemies harmless or their small victims helpless and unable to escape. But it did no human being any good."
"How about the study of these 'victims' of yours—the scientific value?"
"For such study as is really necessary to us, or to them, some laboratories keep a few. Otherwise, the student goes to where the animals live and studies their real habits."
"And how much would he learn of wild tigers by following them about—unless it was an inside view?"
"My dear brother, can you mention one single piece of valuable information for humanity to be found in the study of imprisoned tigers? As a matter of fact, I don't think there are any left by this time; I hope not."
"Do you mean to tell me that your new humanitarianism has exterminated whole species?"