History being a key word.

Look into modern farming practices in the west and you'll see far worse. There may be something to the fact that cruelty is institutionalised and done in the name of profit rather than localised and done in the name of entertainment, but I'm not so sure.

Thanks! For example, the mass destruction of male chicks. The horrible conditions that pigs and chickens are raised in in industrial farms. How zoos keep their animals or kill them for no good reason. People feed live bait to their pet animals too. Etc.