Readers who have reached this twentieth Chapter of my Life will smile (as I have often done of late years) at the ascription to me in sundry not very friendly publications, of exclusive sympathy for animals and total indifference to human interests. I have seen myself frequently described as a woman “who would sacrifice any number of men, women and children, sooner than that a few rabbits should be inconvenienced.” Many good people apparently suppose me to represent a personal survival of Totemism in England; and to worship Dogs and Cats, while ready to consign the human race generally to destruction.

The foregoing pages, describing my life in old days in Ireland and the years which I spent afterwards working in the slums in Bristol, ought, I think, to suffice to dissipate this fancy picture. As a matter of fact, it has only been of late years and since their wrongs have appealed alike to my feelings of pity and to my moral sense, that I have come to bestow any peculiar attention on animals; or have been concerned with them more than is common with the daughters of country squires to whom dogs, horses and cattle are familiar subjects of interest from childhood. I have indeed always felt much affection for dogs: that is to say, for those who exhibit the true Dog-character,—which is far from being the case of every canine creature! Their eagerness, their joyousness, their transparent little wiles, their caressing and devoted affection, are to me more winning, even I may say, more really and intensely human (in the sense in which a child is human), than the artificial, cold and selfish characters one meets too often in the guise of ladies and gentlemen. It is not the four legs, nor the silky or shaggy coat of the dog which should prevent us from discerning his inner nature of Thought and Love; limited Thought, it is true; but quite unlimited Love. That he is dumb, is, to me, only another claim (as it would be in a human child) on my consideration. But because I love good dogs, and, in their measure also, good horses and cats and birds, (I had once a dear and lovely white pea-hen), I am not therefore a morbid Zoophilist. I should be very sorry indeed to say or think like Byron when my dog dies, that I “had but one true friend, and here he lies!” I have,—thank God!—known many men and women, who have all a dog’s merits of honesty and single-hearted devotion plus the virtues which can only flourish on the high level of humanity; and to them I give a friendship which the best of dogs cannot share.

That there are some Timons in the world whose hearts, embittered by human ingratitude, have turned with relief to the faithful love of a dog, I am very well aware. Surely the fact makes one appeal the more on behalf of the creatures who thus by their humble devotion heal the wounds of disappointed or betrayed affection; and who come to cheer the lonely, the unloved, the dull-witted, the blind, the poverty-stricken whom the world forsakes? I think Lamartine was right to treat this love of the Dog for Man as a special provision of Divine mercy, and to marvel,—

Not a few deep thanksgivings, I believe, have gone up to the Maker of man and brute for the silent sympathy,—expressed perhaps in no nobler way than by the gentle licking of a passive hand,—which has yet saved a human heart from the sense of utter abandonment.

But I have no such sorrowful or embittering experience of human affection. I do not say, “The more I know of men the more I love dogs”; but, “The more I know of dogs the more I love them,” without any invidious comparisons with men, women, or children. As regards the children, indeed, I have been always fond of those which came in my way; and if the Tenth Commandment had gone on to forbid coveting one’s neighbour’s “child,” I am not sure that I should not have had to plead guilty to breaking it many times.

In my old home I possessed a dear Pomeranian dog of whom I was very fond, who, being lame, used constantly to ensconce herself (though forbidden by my father) in my mother’s carriage under the seat, and never showed her little pointed nose till the britzska had got so far from home that she knew no one would put her down on the road. Then she would peer out and lie against my mother’s dress and be fondled. Later on I had the companionship of another beautiful, mouse-coloured Pomeranian, brought as a puppy from Switzerland. In my hardworking life in Bristol in the schools and workhouse she followed me and ingratiated herself everywhere, and my solitary evenings were much the happier for dear Hajjin’s company. Many years afterwards she was laid under the sod of our garden in Hereford Square. Another dog of the same breed whom I sent away at one year old to live in the country, was returned to me eight years afterwards, old and diseased. The poor beast recognized me after a few moments’ eager examination, and uttered an actual scream of joy when I called her by name; exhibiting every token of tender affection for me ever afterwards. When one reflects what eight years signify in the life of a dog,—almost equivalent to the distance between sixteen and sixty in a human being,—some measure is afforded by this incident of the durability of a dog’s attachment. Happily, kind Dr. Hoggan cured poor Dee of her malady, and she and I enjoyed five happy years of companionship ere she died here in Hengwrt. I have dedicated my Friend of Man to her memory.

Among my smaller literary tasks in London I wrote an article for which Mr. Leslie Stephen (then editing the Cornhill Magazine in which it appeared) was kind enough to express particular liking. It was called “Dogs whom I have met;” and gave an account of many canine individualities of my acquaintance. I also wrote an article in the Quarterly Review on the Consciousness of Dogs of which I have given above (p. 127) Mr. Darwin’s favourable opinion. Both of these papers are reprinted in my False Beasts and True. Such has been the sum total, I may say, of my personal concern with animals before and apart from my endeavours to deliver them from their scientific tormentors.

It was, as I have stated, the abominable wrongs endured by animals which first aroused, and has permanently maintained, my special interest in them. My great-grandfather had an office in the yard at Newbridge for his magisterial work, and over his own seat he caused to be inscribed the text: “Deliver him that is oppressed from the hand of the adversary.” I know not whether it were a juvenile impression, but I have felt all my life an irresistible impulse to rush in wherever anyone is “oppressed” and try to “deliver” him, her, or it, as the case may be, from the “adversary!” In the case of beasts, their helplessness and speechlessness appeal, I think, to every spark of generosity in one’s heart; and the command, “Open thy mouth for the dumb,” seems the very echo of our consciences. Everything in us, manly or womanly, (and the best in us all is both) answers it back.

When I was a little child, living in a house where hunting, coursing, shooting, and fishing, were carried on by all the men and boys, I took such field sports as part of the order of things, and learned with delight from my father to fish in our ponds on my own account. Somehow it came to pass that when, at sixteen, my mind went through that strange process which Evangelicals call “Conversion,” among the first things which my freshly-awakened moral sense pointed out was,—that I must give up fishing! I reflected that the poor fishes were happy in their way in their proper element; that we did not in the least need, or indeed often use them for food; and that I must no longer take pleasure in giving pain to any creature of God. It was a little effort to me to relinquish this amusement in my very quiet, uneventful life; but, as the good Quaker’s say, it was “borne in on me,” that I had to do it, and from that time I have never held a rod or line (though I have been out in boats where large quantities of fish were caught on the Atlantic coast), and I freely admit that angling scarcely comes under the head of cruelty at all, and is perfectly right and justifiable when the fish are wanted for food and are killed quickly. I used to stand sometimes after I had ceased to fish, over one of the ponds in our park and watch the bright creatures dart hither and thither, and say in my heart a little thanksgiving on their behalf instead of trying to catch them.

Fifty years after this incident, I read in John Woolman’s, (the Quaker Saint’s,) Journal, Chap. XI., this remark:—

“I believe, where the love of God is verily perfected and the true spirit of government watchfully attended, a tenderness towards all creatures made subject to us will be experienced, and a care felt in us that we do not lessen that sweetness of life in the animal creation which the great Creator intends for them under our government.”

To me as I have said it was almost the first, and not an advanced, much less “perfected,” religious impulse, which led me to begin to recognise the claims of the lower animals on our compassion. Of course, I disliked then, and always, hunting, coursing and shooting; but as a woman I was not expected to join in such pursuits, and I did not take on myself to blame those who followed them. I do not now allow of any comparison between the cruelty of such Field Sports and the deliberate Chamber-Sport of Vivisection.

I shall now relate as succinctly as possible the history of the Anti-vivisection Movement, so far as I have had to do with it. Of course an immense amount of work for the same end has been carried on all these twenty years by other Zoophilists with whom I have had no immediate connection, or perhaps cognizance of their labours, but without whose assistance the Society which I helped to found certainly could not have made as much way as it has done. I only presume here to tell the story of the Victoria Street Society, and the occurrences which led to its formation.

In the year 1863, there appeared in several English newspapers complaints of the cruelties practised in the Veterinary Schools at Alfort near Paris. The students were taught there, as in most other continental veterinary schools, to perform operations on living animals, and so to acquire, (at the cost, of course, of untold suffering to the victims,) the same manipulative skill which English students gain equally well by practising on dead carcases. Living horses were supplied to the Alfort students on which, at the time I speak of, they performed sixty operations apiece, including every one in common use, and many which were purely academic, being never employed in actual practice because the horse, after enduring them, becomes necessarily useless. These operations lasted eight hours, and the aspect of the mangled creatures, hoofless, eyeless, burned, gashed, eviscerated, skinned, mutilated in every conceivable way, appalled the visitors, who reported the facts, while it afforded, they said, a subject of merriment to the horde of students. The English Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals laudably exerted itself to stop these atrocities, and appealed to the Emperor to interfere; not, perhaps, very hopefully, since, as I have heard, Napoleon III. was in the habit of attending these hideous spectacles in his own imperial person on the Thursdays on which they took place. This circumstance, taken in connection with the Empress’ patronage of Bull-Fights, has made Sedan seem to me an event on which the animal world, at all events, has to be congratulated.

Some years later Mr. James Cowie took over to France an Appeal, signed by 500 English Veterinarians entreating their French colleagues to adopt the English practice of using only dead carcases for the exercises of students. Through this and other good offices it is understood that the number and severity of the operations performed at Alfort, and elsewhere in France, were then greatly reduced. Unhappily the humane regulations made in 1878 are now evaded, and the dreadful cruelties above described have been actually witnessed by Mr. Peabody and Dr. Baudry, in 1895.

On reading of these cruelties I wrote an article, The Rights of Man and the Claims of Brutes, which I hoped might help to direct public attention to them. In this paper I endeavoured to work out as best I could the ethical problem (which I at once perceived to be beset with difficulties) of a definition of the limits of human rights over animals. My article was published by Mr. Froude in Fraser’s Magazine for Nov., 1863, and was subsequently reprinted in my Studies Ethical and Social. It was, so far as I know the first effort made to deal with the moral questions involved in the torture of animals either for sake of scientific and therapeutic research, or for the acquirement of manipulative skill. In the 30 years which have elapsed since I wrote it I have seen reason to raise considerably the “claims” which I then urged on behalf of the brutes, but I observe that new recruits to our Anti-vivisection party usually begin exactly where I stood at that time, and announce their ideas to me as their mature conclusions.

The same month of November, 1863, in which my article, (written some weeks before, while I was ill and lame at Aix-les-Bains), appeared in Fraser, I was living near Florence, and was startled by hearing of similar cruelties practised at the Specola, where Prof. Schiff had his laboratory. My friend Miss Blagden and I were holding our usual weekly reception in Villa Brichieri on Bellosguardo, and we learned that many of our guests had been shocked by the rumours which had reached them. In particular the American physician who had accompanied Theodore Parker to Florence and attended him in his last days,—Dr. Appleton, of Harvard University,—told us that he himself had gone over Prof. Schiff’s laboratory, and had seen dogs, pigeons and other animals in a frightfully mangled and suffering state. A Tuscan officer had seen a cat so tortured that he forced Schiff to kill it. Some 50 or 60 letters had been (or were afterwards) lodged at the Mairie from neighbours complaining of the disturbance caused by the cries and moans of the victims in the Specola. After much conversation I asked, What could be done to check these systematic cruelties, which no Tuscan law could then touch in any way? It was suggested that a Memorial should be addressed to Prof. Schiff himself, urging him to spare his victims as much as possible. This Memorial I drafted at once, and it was translated into Italian and sent round Florence for signatures. Mrs. Somerville placed her name at the head of it; and through her earnest exertions and those of her daughters and of several other friends, the list of supporters soon became very weighty. Among the English signatures was those of Walter Savage Landor (who added some words so violent that I was obliged to suppress them!); and among the Italians almost the whole historic aristocracy of old Florence,—Corsi’s and Corsini’s, and Aldobrandini’s and Strozzi’s, and a hundred more, the reading of whose names recalled Medicean times. In all, there were 783 signatories. Very few of them were of the mezzo-ceto class, and none belonged to the (Red) Republican party. Schiff was himself a “Red,” and, as such, he might, apparently, commit any cruelty he thought fit, inasmuch as he and the other vivisectors (we were told by a lady prominent in that party) were seeking “the religion of the future”—in the brains and entrails of the tortured beasts! The same lady expressed to me her wish that “every animal in creation should be immolated, if only to discover a single fact of science.” Another Englishwoman (also married to a foreigner) wrote to the Daily News to praise Schiff for “actively pursuing Vivisection.”

The Memorial, as often happens, did no direct good; Professor Schiff tossing it aside, and politely qualifying the signatories, (in the Nazione newspaper,) as “un tas de Marquis.” But it certainly caused the subject to be much discussed, and doubtless prepared the way for the complaints and lawsuits concerning the “nuisances” of the moaning dogs, which eventually made Florence an unpleasant abode for Professor Schiff. He retreated thence to Geneva in 1877. The Florentine Società Protettrice degli Animali was founded by Countess Baldelli in 1873, and has led the agitation there against Vivisection ever since.

Meanwhile on the presentation of the Memorial, Professor Schiff wrote a letter in the Nazione (the chief newspaper of Florence) denying the facts mentioned in the letter of the official Correspondent of the Daily News, and challenging the said correspondent to come forward and make good the statement. I instantly wrote a letter saying that I was the Daily News’ Correspondent in Florence; that the letter complained of was mine; and that for verification of my assertions therein I appended a full and signed statement by Dr. Appleton of what he had himself witnessed in the Specola.

It was rather difficult for me then to believe that this letter of mine (in Italian of course) duly signed and authenticated with name, date and place, was refused publication in the paper wherein I had been challenged to come forward! On learning this amazing fact, I requested Dr. Appleton to go down again to Florence and ask the editor of the Nazione to publish my letter if in no other way, at least as a paid advertisement. The answer made by the editor to Dr. Appleton was, that it might be inserted, but only among the advertisements in certain columns of the paper where no decent reader would look for it. N.B.—the Nazione replenished its exchequer by the help of that class of notices which are declined by every reputable English newspaper. After this Dr. Appleton went in despair to Professor Schiff himself, and told him he was bound in honour, (seeing he had made the challenge to us,) to compel the editor to print our answer. The learned and scientific gentleman shrugged his shoulders and laughed in the face of the American who could imagine him to be so simple!

I left Florence soon after this first brush with the demon of Vivisection, but retained (as will easily be understood) very strong feelings on the subject.

At a meeting of the British Association in Liverpool in 1870 a Committee was appointed to consider the subject of “Physiological Experimentation,” and their Report was published in the Medical Times and Gazette, Feb. 25th, 1871; and in British Assoc. Reports, 1871, p. 144. It consists of the following four Rules or Recommendations on the subject of Vivisection:—

“(I.) No experiment which can be performed under the influence of an anæsthetic ought to be done without it. (II.) No painful experiment is justifiable for the mere purpose of illustrating a law or fact already demonstrated; in other words, experimentation without the employment of anæsthetics is not a fitting exhibition for teaching purposes. (III.) Whenever, for the investigation of new truth, it is necessary to make a painful experiment, every effort should be made to ensure success, in order that the sufferings inflicted may not be wasted. For this reason, no painful experiment ought to be performed by an unskilled person, with insufficient instruments and assistants, or in places not suitable to the purpose; that is to say, anywhere except in physiological and pathological laboratories, under proper regulations. (IV.) In the scientific preparation for veterinary practice, operations ought not to be performed upon living animals for the mere purpose of obtaining greater operative dexterity.”

These four Rules were countersigned by M. A. Lawson, G. M. Humphry (now Sir George Humphry), J. H. Balfour, Arthur Gamgee, William Flower, J. Burdon-Sanderson, and George Rolleston. Of course we, who attended that celebrated Liverpool Meeting of the British Association and had heard the President laud Dr. Brown-Séquard enthusiastically, greatly rejoiced at this humane Ukase of autocratic Science.

But as time passed we were surprised to find that nothing was done to enforce these rules in any way or at any place; and that the particular practice which they most distinctly condemn, namely, the use of vivisections as Illustrations of recognised facts,—was flourishing more than ever without let or hindrance. The prospectuses of University College for 1874–5, of Guy’s Hospital Medical School 1874–5, of St. Thomas’s Hospital, of Westminster Hospital Medical School, etc., all mentioned among their attractions: “Demonstrations on living animals;” “Gentlemen will themselves perform the experiments;” &c., and quite as if nothing whatever had been said against them.

But worse remained. One of the signatories of the above Rules (or as perhaps we may more properly call them, these “Pious Opinions”?),—the most eminent of English physiologists, Prof. Burdon-Sanderson himself, edited and brought out in 1873, the Handbook of the Physiological Laboratory, to which he, Dr. Lauder-Brunton, Dr. Klein, and Dr. Foster were joint contributors. This celebrated work is a Manual of Exercises in Vivisection, intended (as the Preface says) “for beginners in Physiological work.” The following are observations on this book furnished to the Royal Commission by Mr. Colam, and printed in Appendix iv., p. 379, of their Report and Minutes of Evidence:—

“That the object of the editor and his coadjutors was to induce young persons to perform experiments on their own account and without adequate surveillance is manifest throughout the work, by the supply of elementary knowledge and elaborate data. Not only are the names and quantities of necessary chemicals given, but the most careful description is provided in letter-press and plates of implements for holding animals during their struggles, so that a novice may learn at home without a teacher. Besides, the editor’s preface states, that the book is ‘intended for beginners,’ and that ‘difficult and complicated’ experiments consequently have been omitted; and that of Dr. Foster allures the student by assurances of inexpensive as well as easy manipulation.... Very seldom indeed is the student told to anæsthetise, and then only during an operation. It cannot be alleged that ‘beginners’ know when to narcotise, and when not; but if they do then the few directions to use chloral, &c., are unnecessary. No doubt should have been left on this point in a Handbook designed ‘for beginners.’ Besides, where will students find cautions against the infliction of unnecessary pain, and wanton experimentation? On the contrary, the student is encouraged to repeat the torture ‘any number of times.’ These facts are significant.”

In the Minutes of Evidence of the Royal Commission we find that the late Prof. Rolleston, of Oxford, being under examination, was asked by Mr. Hutton: “Then I understand that your opinion about the Handbook is, that it is a dangerous book to society, and that it has warranted to some extent the feeling of anxiety in the public which its publication has created?” Prof. Rolleston: “I am sorry to have to say that I do think it is so” (1351). In his own examination Prof. Burdon-Sanderson admitted that the use of anæsthetics whenever possible “ought to have been stated much more distinctly at the beginning of his book” (2265), and agreed to Lord Cardwell’s suggestion, “Then I may assume that in any future communication with ‘beginners’ greater pains will be taken to make them distinctly understand how animals may be saved from suffering than has been taken in this book?” “Yes,” said Dr. B.-S., “I am quite willing to say that” (2266).

Esoteric Vivisection it will be observed, as revealed in Handbooks for “Beginners,” is a very different thing from Exoteric Vivisection, described for the benefit of the outside public as if regulated by the Four Rules above quoted!

The following year, 1874, certain experiments were performed before a Medical Congress at Norwich. They consisted in the injection of alcohol and of absinthe into the veins of dogs; and were done by M. Magnan, an eminent French physiologist, who has in recent years described sympathy for animals as a special form of insanity. Mr. Colam, on behalf of the R.S.P.C.A., very properly instituted a prosecution against M. Magnan, under the Act 12 and 13 Vict., c. 92; and brought Sir William Fergusson, and Dr. Tufnell (the President of the Irish College of Surgeons) to swear that his experiments were useless. M. Magnan withdrew speedily to his own country or a conviction would certainly have been obtained against him. But it was not merely on proof of the infliction of torture that Mr. Colam’s Society relied to obtain such conviction, but on the high scientific authority which they were able to bring to prove that the torture was scientifically useless. Failing such testimony, which would generally be unattainable, it was recognised that the application of the Act in question (Martin’s Act amended) to scientific cruelties, which it had not been framed to meet, would always be beset with difficulties. It became thenceforth apparent to the friends of animals that some new legislation, calculated to reach offenders pleading scientific purpose for barbarous experiments was urgently needed; and the existence of the Handbook, with minute directions for performing hundreds of operations,—many of them of extreme severity,—proved that the danger was not remote or theoretical; but already present and at our doors.

A few weeks after this trial at Norwich had taken place, and had justly gained great applause for Mr. Colam and the R.S.P.C.A., Mrs. Luther Holden, wife of the eminent surgeon, then Senior Surgeon of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, called on me in Hereford Square to talk over the matter and take counsel as to what could be done to strengthen the law in the desired direction. The great and wealthy R.S.P.C.A. was obviously the body with which it properly lay to promote the needed legislation; and it only seemed necessary to give the Committee of that Society proof that public opinion would strongly support them in calling for it, to induce them to bring a suitable Bill, into Parliament backed by their abundant influence. I agreed to draft a Memorial to the Committee of the R.S.P.C.A. praying it to undertake this task; after learning from Mr. Colam that such an appeal would be altogether welcome; and I may add that I received cordial assistance from him in arranging for its presentation.

It was a difficult task for me to draw up that Memorial, but, such as it was, it acted as a spark to tinder, showing how much latent feeling existed on the subject. Many ladies and gentlemen: notably the Countess of Camperdown, the Countess of Portsmouth (now the Dowager Countess), General Colin Mackenzie, Col. Wood (now Sir Evelyn) and others, exerted themselves most earnestly to obtain influential signatures in their circles, and distributed in all directions copies of the Memorial and of two pamphlets I wrote to accompany it—“Reasons for Interference” and “Need of a Bill.” With their help in the course of about six weeks, (without advertisements or paid agency of any kind), we obtained 600 signatures; every one of which represented a man or woman of some social importance. The first to sign it was my neighbour and friend, Rev. Gerald Blunt, rector of Chelsea. After him came Mr. Carlyle, Tennyson, Browning, Mr. Lecky, Sir Arthur Helps, Sir W. Fergusson, John Bright, Mr. Jowett, the Archbishop of York (Dr. Thomson), Sir Edwin Arnold, the Primate of Ireland (Marcus Beresford), Cardinal Manning (then Archbishop of Westminster), the Duke and Duchess of Northumberland, John Ruskin, James Martineau, the Duke of Rutland, the Duke of Wellington, Lord Coleridge, Lord Selborne, Sir Fitzroy Kelly, the Bishops of Winchester, Exeter, Salisbury, Manchester, Bath and Wells, Hereford, St. Asaph, and Derry, Lord Russell, and many other peers and M.P.’s, and no less than 78 medical men, several of whom were eminent in the profession.

I shall insert here a few of the replies, favourable and otherwise, which I received to my invitations to sign the Memorial.

“The Archbishop of York presents his compliments to Miss Cobbe and begs to enclose the Memorial signed by him.

“‘Exception to suggestion 3rd,’ on the prohibition of publishing, which he thinks unworkable, and therefore (illegible) to the Memorial. If however it is too late to alter it, he will not stand out even on that point.

“He thinks the practices in question detestable. The Norwich case was a disgrace to the country.

“The Archbishop thanks Miss Cobbe for inviting him to sign.”

“Lady Mildred and myself trust that it is not too late to enclose to you the accompanying signatures to the Memorial against Vivisection, although the day fixed for its return has unfortunately been allowed to elapse. We can assure you of our very hearty sympathy in the cause; the delay has wholly come of oversight.

“In regard to the details of the suggestions, I must be allowed to express my doubt as to the feasibility of the 3rd suggestion. Its stringency would I fear defeat its own object. I sympathise too much with the question in itself to decline signing on account of this proposal, but I must request to be considered as a dissentient on that head.

“Believe me, dear Madam, yours very faithfully,

“B. Jowett to Miss F. P. C.

“I have much pleasure in signing the paper which you kindly sent me.

“I should have been very sorry not to join in the Protest against this hideous offence, and am truly obliged to you for furnishing me with the opportunity. The simultaneous loss, from the Morals of our ‘advanced’ scientific men, of all reverent sentiment towards beings above them and towards beings below, is a curious and instructive phenomenon, highly significant of the process which their nature is undergoing at both ends.

“With truest wishes for many a happy and beneficent year

“The Bishop of Manchester” [Dr. Fraser] “presents his compliments to Miss Cobbe, and thanks her for giving him the opportunity of appending his name to this Memorial, which has his most hearty concurrence.”

“The Bishop of Salisbury’s compliments to Miss Cobbe. He cannot withhold his signature to her Paper after reading the ‘reasons which she has kindly sent him.’”

“I have received your letter of the 31st ult. on the subject of the Memorial to the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals with regard to Vivisection.

“I hardly think I should be right, considering my imperfect acquaintance with the subject, in adding my name thereto at present.

“If I had a hundred signatures you should have them all!

“My heart has long burned with indignation against these murderers and torturers of innocent animals.

“Was it for this that the great God made man the Lord of the creation?

“It is incredible hypocrisy and folly to pretend that such wholesale torture is necessary to enlighten these stupid doctors!

“It seems to me peculiarly ungrateful in man, to break forth in this wholesale Animal Inquisition when Providence has so recently revealed to us several new natural powers whereby human suffering is so much diminished.

“But I must restrain my feelings, and you must pardon me. I did not know that this good work was begun.

“Only get some thoroughgoing and able friend of the animal world to tell the tale to a British House of Parliament, and these philosophic torturers will be stayed in their detestable course.

“I have an impression that the subject of Vivisection is to be brought before the Senate of the University of London, which consists mainly of great physicians and surgeons, but of which I am a member. Hence I think I hardly ought to sign the paper you have sent me.

“This, you see is an official answer, but I am glad to be able to make it, for the truth is I have neither thought nor enquired sufficiently about Vivisection to be ready with a clear opinion.

“Even if the utmost be proved against the vivisectors, I am inclined to think that they ought to be dealt with as guilty of a new offence, and not of an old one. I do not at all like the notion of bringing old laws such as Martin’s Act against cruelty to animals, to bear on a class of cases never contemplated at the time of their enactment. It has a certain resemblance to enforcing the old law of blasphemy against persons who discuss Christianity in the modern philosophical spirit. Perhaps I am the more sensitive on this point since a friend elaborately demonstrated to me that I was liable to prosecution for what seemed to me a very innocent passage in a book of mine!

“I have affixed my name with much satisfaction to this Memorial, and I presume that you intend that men should be in largest number on the list.

This Memorial having a certain importance in the history of our movement, I quote the principal paragraphs here:

“The practice of Vivisection has received of recent years enormous extension. Instead of an occasional experiment, made by a man of high scientific attainment, to determine some important problem of physiology, or to test the feasibility of a new surgical operation, it has now become the everyday exercise of hundreds of physiologists and young students of physiology throughout Europe and America. In the latter country, lecturers in most of the schools employ living animals instead of dead for ordinary illustrations, and in Italy one physiologist alone has for some years past experimented on more than 800 dogs annually. A recent correspondence in the Spectator shows that many English physiologists contemplate the indefinite multiplication of such vivisections; some (as Dr. Pye-Smith) defending them as illustrations of lectures, and some (as Mr. Ray-Lankester) frankly avowing that one experiment must lead to another ad infinitum. Every real or supposed discovery of one physiologist immediately causes the repetition of his experiments by scores of students. The most numerous and important of these researches being connected with the nervous system, the use of complete anæsthetics is practically prohibited. Even when employed during an operation, the effect of the anæsthetic of course shortly ceases, and, for the completion of the experiment, the animal is left to suffer the pain of the laceration to which it has been subjected. Another class of experiments consists in superinducing some special disease; such as alcoholism (tried by M. Magnan on dogs at Norwich), and the peculiar malady arising from eating diseased pork (Trichiniasis), superinduced on a number of rabbits in Germany by Dr. Virchow. How far public opinion is becoming deadened to these practices is proved by the frequent recurrence in the newspapers of paragraphs simply alluding to them as matters of scientific interest involving no moral question whatever. One such recently appeared in a highly respectable Review, detailing a French physiologist’s efforts, first to drench the veins of dogs with alcohol, and then to produce spontaneous combustion. Such experiments as these, it is needless to remark, cannot be justified as endeavours to mitigate the sufferings of humanity, and are rather to be characterised as gratifications of the ‘dilettantism of discovery.’

“The recent trial at Norwich has established the fact that, in a public Medical Congress, and sanctioned by a majority of the members, an experiment was tried which has since been formally pronounced by two of the most eminent surgeons in the kingdom to have been ‘cruel and unnecessary.’ We have, therefore, too much reason to fear that in laboratories less exposed to public view, and among inconsiderate young students, very much greater abuses take place which call for repression.

“It is earnestly urged by your Memorialists that the great and influential Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals may see fit to undertake the task (which appears strictly to fall within its province) of placing suitable restrictions on this rapidly increasing evil. The vast benefit to the cause of humanity which the Society has in the past half century effected, would, in our humble estimation, remain altogether one-sided and incomplete; if, while brutal carters and ignorant costermongers are brought to punishment for maltreating the animals under their charge, learned and refined gentlemen should be left unquestioned to inflict far more exquisite pain upon still more sensitive creatures; as if the mere allegation of a scientific purpose removed them above all legal or moral responsibility.

“We therefore beg respectfully to urge on the Committee the immediate adoption of such measures as may approve themselves to their judgment as most suitable to promote the end in view, namely, the Restriction of Vivisection; and we trust that it may not be left to others, who possess neither the wealth or organization of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, to make such efforts in the same direction as might prove to be in their power.”

It was arranged that the Memorial should be presented in Jermyn Street in a formal manner on the 25th January, 1875, by a deputation introduced by my cousin’s husband, Mr. John Locke, M.P., Q.C., and consisting of Sir Frederick Elliot, Lord Jocelyn Percy, General G. Lawrence, Mr. R. H. Hutton, Mr. Leslie Stephen, Dr. Walker, Col. Wood (now Sir Evelyn) and several ladies.

Prince Lucian Bonaparte, who always warmly befriended the cause, took the chair at first, and was succeeded by Lord Harrowby, President of the R.S.P.C.A., supported by Lady Burdett Coutts, Lord Mount-Temple (then Mr. Cowper-Temple) and others.

After some friendly discussion it was agreed that the Committee of the R.S.P.C.A. would give the subject their most zealous attention; and a sub-Committee to deal with the matter was accordingly appointed immediately afterwards.

When I drove home to Hereford Square from Jermyn Street that day, I rejoiced to think that I had accomplished a step towards obtaining the protection of the law for the victims of science; and I fully believed that I was free to return to my own literary pursuits and to the journalism which then occupied most of my time. A few days later I was requested to attend (for the occasion only) the first Meeting of the sub-Committee for Vivisection of the R.S.P.C.A. On entering the room my spirits sank, for I saw round the table a number of worthy gentlemen, mostly elderly, but not one of the more distinguished members of their Committee or, (I think), a single Peer or Member of Parliament. In short, they were not the men to take the lead in such a movement and make a bold stand against the claims of science. After a few minutes the Chairman himself asked me: “Whether I could not undertake to get a Bill into Parliament for the object we desired?” As if all my labour with the Memorial had not been spent to make them do this very thing! It was obviously felt by others present that this suggestion was out of place, and I soon retired, leaving the sub-Committee to send Mr. Colam round to make enquiries among the physiologists—a mission which might, perhaps, be represented as a friendly request to be told frankly “whether they were really cruel?” I understood, later, that he was shown a painless vivisection on a cat and offered a glass of sherry; and there (so far as I know or ever heard) the labours of that sub-Committee ended. Mr. Colam afterwards took immense pains to collect evidence from the published works of Vivisectors of the extent and severity of their operations; and this very valuable mass of materials was presented by him some months later to the Royal Commission, and is published in the Blue Book as an Appendix to their Minutes.

I was, of course, miserably disappointed at this stage of affairs, but on the 2nd February, 1875, there appeared in the Morning Post the celebrated letter from Dr. George Hoggan, in which (without naming Claude Bernard) he described what he had himself witnessed in his laboratory when recently working there for several months. This letter was absolutely invaluable to our cause, giving, as it did, reality and firsthand testimony to all we had asserted from books and reports. In the course of it Dr. Hoggan said:—

“I venture to record a little of my own experience in the matter, part of which was gained as an assistant in the laboratory of one of the greatest living experimental physiologists. In that laboratory we sacrificed daily from one to three dogs, besides rabbits and other animals, and after four months’ experience I am of opinion that not one of those experiments on animals was justified or necessary. The idea of the good of humanity was simply out of the question, and would be laughed at, the great aim being to keep up with, or get ahead of, one’s contemporaries in science, even at the price of an incalculable amount of torture needlessly and iniquitously inflicted on the poor animals. During three campaigns I have witnessed many harsh sights, but I think the saddest sight I ever witnessed was when the dogs were brought up from the cellar to the laboratory for sacrifice. Instead of appearing pleased with the change from darkness to light, they seemed seized with horror as soon as they smelt the air of the place, divining, apparently, their approaching fate. They would make friendly advances to each of the three or four persons present, and as far as eyes, ears, and tail could make a mute appeal for mercy eloquent, they tried it in vain.

“Were the feelings of the experimental physiologists not blunted, they could not long continue the practice of vivisection. They are always ready to repudiate any implied want of tender feeling, but I must say that they seldom show much pity; on the contrary, in practice they frequently show the reverse. Hundreds of times I have seen, when an animal writhed with pain and thereby deranged the tissues, during a delicate dissection, instead of being soothed, it would receive a slap and an angry order to be quiet and behave itself. At other times, when an animal had endured great pain for hours without struggling or giving more than an occasional low whine, instead of letting the poor mangled wretch loose to crawl painfully about the place in reserve for another day’s torture, it would receive pity so far that it would be said to have behaved well enough to merit death; and, as a reward, would be killed at once by breaking up the medulla with a needle, or ‘pithing,’ as this operation is called. I have often heard the professor say when one side of an animal had been so mangled and the tissues so obscured by clotted blood that it was difficult to find the part searched for, ‘Why don’t you begin on the other side?’ or ‘Why don’t you take another dog? What is the use of being so economical?’ One of the most revolting features in the laboratory was the custom of giving an animal, on which the professor had completed his experiment, and which had still some life left, to the assistants to practice the finding of arteries, nerves, &c., in the living animal, or for performing what are called fundamental experiments upon it—in other words, repeating those which are recommended in the laboratory hand-books. I am inclined to look upon anæsthetics as the greatest curse to vivisectible animals. They alter too much the normal conditions of life to give accurate results, and they are therefore little depended upon. They, indeed, prove far more efficacious in lulling public feeling towards the vivisectors than pain in the vivisected.”

I had met Dr. Hoggan one day just before this occurrence at Mdme. Bodichon’s house, but I had no idea that he would, or could, bear such valuable testimony; and I have never ceased to feel that in thus nobly coming forward to offer it spontaneously, he struck the greatest blow on our side in the whole battle. Of course I expressed to him all the gratitude I felt, and we thenceforth took counsel frequently as to the policy to be pursued in opposing vivisection.

It soon became evident that if a Bill were to be presented to Parliament that session it must be promoted by some parties other than the Committee of the R.S.P.C.A. Indeed in the following December The Animal World, in a leading article, avowed that “the Royal Society (P.C.A.) is not so entirely unanimous as to desire the passing of any special legislative enactment on this subject” (vivisection). Feeling convinced that some such obstacle was in the way I turned to my friends to see if it might be possible to push on a Bill independently, and with the most kind help of Sir William Hart Dyke (the Conservative whip), it was arranged that a Bill for “Regulating the Practice of Vivisection” should be introduced with the sanction of Government into the House of Lords by Lord Henniker (Lord Hartismere). It is impossible to describe all the anxiety I endured during the interval up to the 4th May, when this Bill was actually presented. Lord Henniker was exceedingly good about it and took much pains with the draft prepared at first by Sir Frederick Elliot, and afterwards completed for Lord Henniker by Mr. Fitzgerald. Lord Coleridge also took great interest in it, and gave most valuable advice, and Mr. Lowe (who afterwards bitterly opposed the almost identical measure of Lord Cross in the Commons), was willing to give this earlier Bill much consideration. I met him one day at luncheon at Airlie Lodge, where were also Lord Henniker, Lady Minto, Lord Airlie and others interested, and the Bill was gone over clause by clause till adjusted to Mr. Lowe’s counsels.

Lord Henniker introduced the Bill thus drafted “for Regulating the Practice of Vivisection” into the House of Lords on the 4th May, 1875; but on the 12th May, to our great surprise another Bill to prevent Abuse in Experiments on Animals was introduced into the House of Commons by Dr. (now Lord) Playfair. On the appearance of this latter Bill, which was understood to be promoted by the physiologists themselves—notably by Dr. Burdon-Sanderson, and by Mr. Charles Darwin—the Government, which had sanctioned Lord Henniker’s Bill, thought it necessary to issue a Royal Commission of Enquiry into the subject before any legislation should be proceeded with. This was done accordingly on the 22nd June, and both Bills were then withdrawn.

The student of this old chapter of the history of the Anti-vivisection Crusade will find both of the above-named Bills (and also the ineffective sketch of what might have been the Bill of the R.S.P.C.A.) in the Appendix to the Report of the Royal Commission, pp. 336–8. Mr. Charles Darwin, in a letter to the Times, April 18th, 1881, said that he “took an active part in trying to get a Bill passed such as would have removed all just cause of complaint, and at the same time have left the physiologists free to pursue their researches,”—a “Bill very different from that which has since been passed.” As Mr. Darwin’s biographer, while reprinting this letter, has not quoted my challenge to him in the Times of the 23rd to point out “in what respect the former Bill is very different from the Act of 1876,” I think it well to cite here the lucid definition of that difference as delineated in the Spectator of May 15th, doubtless by the editor, Mr. Hutton.