One English school makes its boast that out of the seven thousand boys whom it has sent out, all carefully taught to be kind to animals, not one has ever been proved guilty of any crime. Through an inquiry made a few years ago, it was found that only twelve out of two thousand convicts in our prisons had ever had a pet animal in their childhood.
Daniel Webster, the great American statesman, loved cattle. When at Marshfield, knowing that he was about to die, he requested that all his cattle should be driven to his window that he might see them for the last time; and as they came past his window one by one he called each by name.
Walter von der Vogelweide, a great lyric poet of the Middle Ages, so loved birds that he gave by his will a large sum of money to the monks of Wurzburg, on condition that they should feed the birds every day on the tombstone over his grave.
And so with our modern great men. We find President Lincoln protecting the little wild birds and their nests. We find President Garfield taking a poor half-starved, half-frozen dog from the streets of Washington to his comfortable home.
General Porter says that he never saw General Grant really angry but twice in his life—and one of those times was when he saw an army teamster beating a poor horse. He ordered the teamster to be tied up and severely punished.
The great Duke of Wellington, who won the battle of Waterloo, was so kind to the lower creatures that he ordered that special protection be given a toad in his garden.
It may be worth a thousand dollars to you some day, if you remember what I am now going to tell you.
It is this: if the time ever comes when you feel as though you hadn’t a friend in the world and wish that you were dead, go and get some pet that you can talk to and love and care for—if it is only a little bird. You will be astonished to find the relief and happiness it will bring into your life.
—George T. Angell—Adapted.