Cruelty must be whitewashed by a moral excuse, and pretense of reluctance

Cruelty would be delicious if one could only find some sort of cruelty that didn't really hurt.

Cruelty would be delicious if one could only find some sort of cruelty that didn’t really hurt.

We cut the throat of a calf and hang it up by the heels to bleed to death so that our veal cutlet may be white; we nail geese to a board and cram them with food because we like the taste of liver disease; we tear birds to pieces to decorate our women's hats; we mutilate domestic animals for no reason at all except to follow an instinctively cruel fashion; and we connive at the most abominable tortures in the hope of discovering some magical cure for our own diseases by them.

Life on board a pleasure steamer violates every moral and physical condition of healthy life except fresh air... It is a guzzling, lounging, gambling, dog's life. The only alternative to excitement is irritability.