Letter: New life for animals

Sir: Anne McElvoy ("Animals have no rights, but we still have duties towards them", 9 December) makes a faint effort to understand that animals deserve better treatment at our hands, but misses the point. Rights are not something that are in the exclusive gift of the human race, to be bestowed as our judgement sees fit. People with a wider vision cannot avoid the understanding that it is the birthright of animals to live free of persecution or molestation at the hands of a species that has the intellect to know what it is doing.

Ms McElvoy is misquoting Ralph Hodgson (1871-1962) and his superb poem, "The Bells of Heaven". Correctly quoted, it is:

'Twould ring the bells of Heaven

The wildest peal for years,

If Parson lost his senses,

And people came to theirs,

And he and they together

Knelt down with angry prayers

For tamed and shabby tigers

And dancing dogs and bears,

And wretched, blind, pit ponies,

And little hunted hares.

Now there was a man ahead of his time.

PENNY LITTLE

Great Haseley, Oxfordshire