But that Scrooge was better for giving the turkey and Cratchit happier
for getting it I know as two facts, as I know that I have two feet. What
life and death may be to a turkey is not my business; but the soul of
Scrooge and the body of Cratchit are my business. Nothing shall induce
me to darken human homes, to destroy human festivities, to insult human
gifts and human benefactions for the sake of some hypothetical knowledge
which Nature curtained from our eyes. We men and women are all in the
same boat, upon a stormy sea. We owe to each other a terrible and tragic
loyalty. If we catch sharks for food, let them be killed most
mercifully; let any one who likes love the sharks, and pet the sharks,
and tie ribbons round their necks and give them sugar and teach them to
dance. But if once a man suggests that a shark is to be valued against a
sailor, or that the poor shark might be permitted to bite off a nigger's
leg occasionally; then I would court-martial the man--he is a traitor to
the ship.
And while I take this view of humanitarianism of the anti-Christmas
kind, it is cogent to say that I am a strong anti-vivisectionist. That
is, if there is any vivisection, I am against it.
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