Lobsters, Oysters

Lobster, Oysters

It is painful for a live and squirming lobster to be immersed suddenly in boiling water. So decided the members of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, after careful consideration, in London a fortnight ago. They protested to restaurateurs against this barbaric treatment of the inarticulate lobster; sought to discover a more humane method of killing.

Last week champions of the oyster arose with claims of even greater atrocities. Consider the oyster, said they. First, he (or she) is ripped unkindly from the shell, stuck through the flesh with a fork, dipped in a smarting pepper cocktail, partly mangled by human teeth, squeezed down a narrow canal, smothered to death in the gastric juices of the human stomach. How can civilized sensibilities stand for this, asked the oyster's friends. Could a man swallow a slimy, wiggling baby toad and not feel any reaction in his stomach?* Edward G. Boulenger, Director of the Aquarium at the London Zoo, a stalwart oyster champion, called attention to the following evolutionary axiom: "The higher the form of life an animal has, the more keenly it suffers."

*The ancient and popular supersitition that contact with a toad brings warts to human membranes was long ago scientifically disproved.