Thank you for the article "Dean's Yard" in the December issue of
The Vegetarian. In these gloomy days it was most cheering
to learn that there is at least one (possibly many more) Church
dignatory like the Very Reverend Edward Carpenter, Dean of
Westminster, who is turning to vegetarianism as the first step
towards calling a halt to all the unnecessary cruelty being
inflicted by man on the animal kingdom.
I couldn't agree more with his views on the growing awareness of
young people - and not only the young! - to world problems, and to
the need to conserve that world in all its wonder and beauty. True,
there is violence and cruelty and greed, but there is also the
reverse side of the coin: the growing multitude of people who are
not only concerned about these things but are working actively,
sometimes around the clock, to abolish cruelty to animals, to
preserve rare species of animal, bird and plant life and to rectify
the damage done by pollution, etc., People such as the many animal
welfare groups, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, the
World Wild-Life Association and the Friends of the Earth, etc., who
are all doing magnificent work and to whom we are greatly indebted.
Then there are the thousands of men and women, not to mention once
again the young people, who are "sitting up and taking notice" as it
were, becoming bird-watchers instead of bird-killers for example,
and this in the last forty years or so, as the Dean remarked.
I'm not suggesting that we sit back complacently and gloat over
all this resurgence of interest, but I do think that, now and again,
we forget the gloom and despondency and concentrate on all the
compassion, kindness and dedication there is in the world today.
Violet M. Hillman
The Vegetarian
(January 1976)
See Article:
http://www.all-creatures.org/fol/art-deansyard.html
