On This Day...

I have been entertaining myself this morning by thumbing through an assortment of diaries looking to see if anything exciting happened on this day in the lives of anyone. One book entitled English Diaries (1930) and edited by Elizabeth D'Oyley contains the musings of such worthies as Samuel Pepys, John Evelyn, Fanny Burney, Dorothy Wordsworth, Sir Walter Scott, and arctic explorer Captain Robert Scott.

I couldn't find any entries for December 22 by any of the diarists in that collection, so I turned to The Assassin's Cloak (2000) edited by Irene and Alan Taylor. This is a wonderful compendium of diary entries by a wild variety of folks and is both entertaining and thought provoking.

Here is one of the five entries included for today written down by J.R. Ackerley, a British writer and editor. Mr. Ackerley (1896-1967) was the literary editor of The Listener, the BBC's weekly magazine. I must say I have to agree with his sentiments... 

December 22, 1952

The Movietone News this week had a Christmas feature. A large number of flustered turkeys were driven towards the camera, and the commentator remarked that the Christmas rush was on, or words to that effect. Next they were seen crowded about their feeding trough, making the gobbling turkey fuss, and the commentator observed, with dry humour (again I do not remember his exact words), that it was no use their holding a protest meeting, for they were for it in the morning. Similar facetious jokes followed them wherever they went, hurrying and trampling about in their silly way; for to make them look as silly as possible was no doubt part of the joke and easy to achieve: turkeys, like hens, like all animals, are beautiful in themselves, and have even a kind of dignity when they are leading their own lives, but the fowls, in particular, look foolish when they are being frightened.

These jolly, lip-licking sallies, delivered in the rich, cultivated self-confident voice of one who has no sort of doubt of his own superiority to the animal kingdom, raised no laugh from the considerable audience, I was pleased to note. I took it from the silence that many other people besides myself would have been glad to be spared jeers and jibes at these creatures who, parting unwillingly with their lives, were to afford us pleasure at our Christmas tables. 

...How arrogant people are in their behaviour to the domestic beasts at least. Indeed, yes, we feed upon them, and enjoy their flesh; but does that permit us to make fun of them before they die or after they are dead? If it were possible, without disordering one's whole life, to be a vegetarian, I would be one; nothing could have been more disgusting and degrading than the insensitiveness displayed by the exhibition I have described.