To the Editor of the "Norra-Cuina Dairy News."
Srr,—May we beg space in your columns to intermeddle in what does not concern us, but with a matter which does directly concern those dumb creatures in whose behalf we are commanded to open our lips, even when they are appointed to destruction? We refer to the proper crating of pets when they are being shipped from one port to another.
On the 9th instant a wooden box, badly ventilated, only one small slit between two of the strips covering its top being left open to admit air, and with a label add-rossed to an individual in Hongkong, was taken to Hunt's Wharf by a Chinese, ostensibly a servant, an put on board Captain Chandler's boat. This boat was bound for Tientsin, and before she sailed the box was taken off and left on the wharf. On the following day the officials there, discovering that it contained animals, tore off the cover and released a cat and three small kittens, which had been shut inside in the—stifling heat without food and water.
If these animals were the property of a foreigner, why, in the name of common humanity, was not the box prepared with proper air vents before they were put inside? And why were they entrusted to a servant who either did not know enough, or did not cate to take the trouble to inform anyone what the box contained, nor to request that the cats be fed and given water en route? Not to men-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.