Ralph Leavis (Oxford Mail, December 27) castigates people who sing for animals and not for their own kind, and asks: “Are they really human?”

When I see or learn of people who permit or participate in the most appalling cruelty towards their own kind, or to non-humans, I see utter depravity.

Life is life, whatever form it takes and deserves total respect.

Unfortunately, largely due to religious teaching which, to my mind, does not reflect in any way the beneficence of a loving God, non-humans can be used and abused, cruelly experimented on for the dubious benefit of humans, treated as expendable objects by the sporting fraternity and generally ground into the dust under the unseeing, uncaring boot of mankind.

Personally, I am not bothered about what Cranmer, Latimer or Ridley would think about animal rights. Not much, I would imagine.

But I hope we have moved on, at least a bit, since then and, thanks to the activists, at least some attention is now paid to the welfare of both wild and domestic creatures, albeit not nearly enough.

In conclusion, how do you know, Mr Leavis, that those people so belittled by you for openly caring about the fate of animals, do not also care about and actively help humankind?

BEA BRADLEY, Cuxham Road, Watlington