Chapter XXIII: Introduction (23)

“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.

“Yours,
“F. CLOSE.”
(Dean of Carlisle.)

“27, Cornwall Gardens, S.W.,
“December 30th, 1874.

“My dear Miss Cobbe,

“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!

“Believe me, very truly yours,
“H. S. MAINE.”
(Sir Henry Sumner Maine.)

“16, George Street, Hanover Square, W.,
“19th December, 1874.

“Dear Miss Cobbe,

“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.

“Yours faithfully,
“W. FERGUSSON.”
(Sir William Fergusson, F.R.S.,
Serjeant-Surgeon to the Queen.)

* * * * *

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.

“THE VIVISECTION-RESTRICTION BILLS.

“On Wednesday afternoon last, Dr. Lyon Playfair laid on the table of
the House of Commons a Bill for the Restriction of Vivisection, which
has been drawn up by physiologists, no doubt in part, in the interest
of physiological science, but also in part, no doubt in the interest
of humanity. The contents of this Bill are the best answer which it is
possible to give to the ignorant attack made in a daily contemporary
on Tuesday on Lord Henniker’s Bill, introduced into the House of Lords
last week. The two Bills differ in principle only on one important
point. Both of them clearly have been maturely considered by men of
science as well as by humanitarians. Both of them assume the great and
increasing character of the evil which has to be dealt with. Both of
them approach that evil in the same manner, by insisting that
scientific experiments which are painful to animals shall be tried
only on the avowed responsibility of men of the highest education,
whose right to try them may be withdrawn if it be abused. Both of them
aim at compelling the physiologists who are permitted to try such
experiments at all, to use anæsthetics throughout the experiment,
whenever the use of anæsthetics is not fatal to the investigation
itself.... The Bills differ, however, on a most important point. It is
certain that all the contempt showered on Lord Henniker’s Bill by the
ignorant assailants of the humanitarian party might equally have been
showered on Dr. Lyon Playfair’s. But Lord Henniker’s Bill contemplates
making physiological and pathological experiments on living animals,
even under complete anæsthesia, illegal, except under the same
responsibility and on the same conditions as those experiments which
are not, and cannot be, conducted under complete anæsthesia,—while Dr.
Lyon Playfair leaves all experiments conducted under anæsthetics,—and
will practically, though not theoretically, leave, we fear, those
which only PROFESS to be so conducted (a very different thing),—as
utterly without restriction as they now are. Indeed, it attempts no
sort of limitation upon them. If a whole hecatomb of guinea-pigs, or
even dogs, were known to be imported, and their carcases exported
daily from the private house of any man who declared that he _always
used anæsthetics_, Dr. Playfair’s Bill provides, we believe, no sort
of machinery by which the truth of his assertion could be even
tested.... It is, however, no small matter to have obtained this clear
admission on scientific authority that the victimisation of animals in
the interest of science is an evil of a growing and serious kind which
needs legislative interference, and calls for at least the threat of
serious penalties....”

In short, the Bill promoted by the physiologists and Mr. Darwin, was, like the Resolutions of the Liverpool British Association, a “Pious Opinion” or _Brutum fulmen_. Nothing more.

The Royal Commission on Vivisection was issued, as I have said, on the 22nd June, 1875, and the _Report_ was dated January 8th, 1876. The intervening months were filled with anxiety. I heard constantly all that went on at the Commission, and my hopes and fears rose and fell week by week. Of the constitution of the Commission much might be said. Writing of it in the _British Friend_, May, 1876, the late Mr. J. B. Firth, M.P., Q.C., remarked:—

“If it were possible for a Royal Commission to be appointed to inquire into the practice of Thuggee, I should have very little confidence in their report if one-third of the Commissioners were prominent practisers of the art. On the same principle the constitution of this Commission is open to the observation that it included two notorious advocates of vivisection, Dr. Erichsen and Professor Huxley, both of whom had to ‘explain’ their writings and practices in connection with it, in the course of the inquiry.”

Certain it is, as I heard at the time, and as anyone may verify by looking over the _Minutes of Evidence_, these two able gentlemen acted, not as Judges on the Bench examining evidence dispassionately, but as exceedingly vigorous and keen-eyed Counsel for the Physiologists. On the humanitarian side there was but a single pronounced opponent of Vivisection,—Mr. R. H. Hutton,—who nobly sacrificed his time for half a year to doing all that was in the power of a single Member of the Commission, and he a layman, to elicit the truth concerning the alleged cruelty of the practice. At the end, after receiving a mass of evidence in answer to 3,764 questions from 53 witnesses, the Commission reported distinctly _in favour of legislative interference_. They say:—

“Even if the weight of authority on the side of legislative
interference had been less considerable, we should have thought
ourselves called upon to recommend it by the reason of the thing. It
is manifest that the practice is, from its very nature, liable to
great abuse, and that since it is impossible for society to entertain
the idea of putting an end to it, it ought to be subjected to due
regulation and control.... It is not to be doubted that inhumanity may
be found in persons of very high position as physiologists.... Beside
the cases in which inhumanity exists, we are satisfied that there are
others in which carelessness and indifference prevail to an extent
sufficient to form a ground for legislative interference.”

Yet in the face of these and other weighty sentences to the same purpose, it has been persistently asserted that the Royal Commission _exonerated_ English physiologists from all charge of cruelty! In Mr. Darwin’s celebrated letter to Professor Holmgren, of Upsala, published in the _Times_, April, 1881, he said: “The investigation of the matter by a Royal Commission proved that the accusations made against our English physiologists _were false_.” Commenting on this letter the _Spectator_, April 23rd, 1881 (doubtless Mr. Hutton himself) observed:

“The Royal Commission did not report this. They came to no such
conclusion, and though that may be Mr. Darwin’s own inference from
what they did say, it is only his inference, not theirs. In our
opinion it was proved that very great cruelty had been practised, with
hardly any appreciable results, by more than one British
physiologist.”

Nor must it be left out of sight in estimating the disingenuousness of the advocates of vivisection, that the above quoted sentences from the _Report_ of the Commission were countersigned by those representatives of Science, Prof. Huxley and Mr. Erichsen; as were, of course, also the subsequent paragraphs, formally recommending a measure almost identical with Lord Carnarvon’s Bill. In spite of this the Vivisecting clique has not ceased to assert that English physiologists were exculpated, and to protest against the measure which we introduced in strict accordance with that recommendation; a measure which was even still further mitigated, (as regarded freedom to the vivisectors,) under the pressure of their Deputation to the Home Office, till it became the present _quasi_ ineffectual Act.

While the Royal Commission was still sitting in the autumn, and when it had become obvious that much would remain to be done before any effectual check could be placed on Vivisection, Dr. Hoggan suggested to me that we should form a Society to carry on the work. I abhorred Societies, and knew only too well the huge additional labour of working the machinery of one, over and above any direct help to the object in view. I had hitherto worked independently and freely, taking always the advice of the eminent men who were so good as to counsel me at every step. But I felt that this plan could not suffice much longer, and that the authority of a formally constituted Society was needed to make headway against an evil which daily revealed itself as more formidable. Accordingly I agreed with Dr. Hoggan that we should do well to form such a Society, he and I being the Honorary Secretaries, _provided_ we could obtain the countenance of some men of eminence to form the nucleus. “I will write,” I said, “to Lord Shaftesbury and to the Archbishop of York. If they will give me their names, we can conjure with them. If _not_, I will not undertake to form a Society.”

I wrote that night to those two eminent persons. I received next day from Lord Shaftesbury a telegram (which he must have dispatched _instantly_ on receiving my letter) which answered “Yes.” Next day the post brought from him the letter which I shall here print. The next post brought also the letter from Archbishop Thomson. Thus the Society consisted for two days of Lord Shaftesbury, the Archbishop, Dr. Hoggan and myself!

“Lord Shaftesbury to Miss F. P. C.

“St. Giles’s House, Cranbourne, Salisbury,
“November 17th, 1875.

“Dear Miss Cobbe,

“It is needful I am sure, to found a Society, in order to have unity
and persistency of action.

“I judge, by the terms of the circular, that the object of the Society
will be restriction and not prohibition.

“Possibly, this end is as much as you will be able to attain.
Prohibition, I doubt not, would be evaded; but restriction will, I am
certain, be exceeded.

“Not but that a little is better than nothing.

“But you will find many who will think with much show of reason, that,
by surrendering the principle, you have surrendered the great
argument.

“Faithfully yours, SHAFTESBURY.”

“Bishopthorpe, York,
“November 16th, 1875.

“Dear Miss Cobbe,

“I am quite ready to join the Society for restricting Vivisection. I
agree with you; total prohibition would be impossible.

“I am, yours very truly,
“W. EBOR.”

With these names to “conjure with,” as I have said, we found it easy to enrol a goodly company in the ranks of our new Society. Cardinal Manning was one of the first to join us. On the 2nd Dec., 1875, the first Committee meeting was held in the house of Dr. and Mrs. Hoggan, 13, Granville Place, Portman Square, Mr. Stansfeld taking the chair. Mrs. Wedgwood, wife of Mr. Hensleigh Wedgwood and mother of my friend Miss Julia Wedgwood, was present at that first meeting, and (so long as her health permitted,) at those which followed,—a worthy example of “heredity,” since her father and mother, Sir James and Lady Mackintosh, had been among the principal supporters of Richard Martin, and founders of the R.S.P.C.A. At the third meeting of the Committee, on Feb. 18th, 1876, Lord Shaftesbury took the Chair, for the first time, and again he took it on the occasion of a memorable meeting on the 1st of March, but vacated it on the arrival of Archbishop Thomson, who proved to be an admirably efficient Chairman. We had a serious job, that day; that of discussing the “_Statement_” of our position and objects. I had drafted this _Statement_ in preparation, as well as compiled from the _Minutes of Evidence_, a series of Extracts exhibiting the extension and abuses of Vivisection; and also evidence regarding Anæsthetics and regarding foreign physiologists. These appendices were all accepted and appear in the pamphlet; but my _Statement_ was most minutely debated, clause for clause, and at last adopted, not without several modifications. After summarising the Report of the Royal Commission which “has been in some respects seriously misconstrued” (I might add, persistently misconstrued ever since) and also Mr. Hutton’s independent _Report_, in which he desired that the “Household Animals” should be exempted from Vivisection, the Committee carefully criticise this Report and express their confident hope that “a Bill may be introduced immediately by Government to carry out the recommendations of the Commission.” They observe, in conclusion, that they find “a just summary of their sentiments in Mr. Hutton’s expression of his view:—

“‘The measure will not at all satisfy my own conceptions of the needs
of the case, unless it result in putting an end to all experiments
involving not merely torture _but anything at all approaching
thereto_.’”

Such was our attitude at that memorable date when we commenced the regular steady work which has now gone on for just 18 years. On the 2nd or 3rd of March I took possession of the offices where so large a part of my life was henceforth to be spent. When my kind colleagues had left me and I locked the outer door of the offices and knew myself to be alone, I resolved very seriously to devote myself, so long as might be needful, to this work of trying to save God’s poor creatures from their intolerable doom; and I resolved “never to go to bed at night leaving a stone unturned which might help to stop Vivisection.” I believe I have kept that resolution. I commend it to other workers.

It may interest the reader to know who were the persons then actually aiding and supporting our movement.

There was,—first and most important,—my colleague and friend Dr. George Hoggan, who laboured incessantly (and wholly gratuitously) for the cause. His wife, Dr. Frances Hoggan, who I am thankful to say, still survives, was also a most useful member of the Committee.

The other Members of the Executive were: Sir Frederick Elliot, K.C.M.G. who had long been Permanent Secretary at the Colonial Office; Major-General Colin Mackenzie, a noble old hero of the Afghan wars and the Mutiny; Mr. Leslie Stephen; Mrs. Hensleigh Wedgwood; Dr. Vaughan (the late Master of the Temple); the Countess of Portsmouth; the Countess of Camperdown; my friend Miss Lloyd; my cousin, Mr. Locke, M.P., Q.C.; Mr. William Shaen; Col. (now Sir Evelyn) Wood; and Mr. Edward de Fonblanque. The latter gentleman was one of the most useful members of the Committee, whose retirement three years later after our adoption of a more advanced policy, I have never ceased to regret.

Beside these Members of the Committee we had then as Vice-Presidents, the Archbishop of York, the Marquis of Bute, Cardinal Manning, Lord Portsmouth, Mr. Cowper-Temple (afterwards Lord Mount-Temple), Right Hon. James Stansfeld, Lord Shaftesbury, the Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol (Dr. Ellicott), the Bishop of Manchester (Dr. Fraser), Lord Chief Justice Coleridge, and the Lord Chief Baron, Sir Fitzroy Kelly.

Dr. Hoggan had invited Mr. Spurgeon to join our Society, but received from him the following reply:—

“Rev. C. H. Spurgeon to Dr. Hoggan.
“Nightingale Lane, Clapham,
“Dec. 24th.

“Dear Sir,

“I do not like to become an officer of a Society for I have no time to
attend to the duties of such an office, and it strikes me as a false
system which is now so general, which allows names to appear on
Committees and requires no service from the individuals.

“In all efforts to spare animals from needless pain I wish you the
utmost success. There are cases in which they _must_ suffer, as we
also must, but not one pang ought to be endured by them from which we
can screen them.

“Yours heartily,
“C. H. SPURGEON.

“I shall aid your effort in my own way.”

Mr. Spurgeon wrote on one occasion a letter to Lord Shaftesbury to be read from the Chair at a Meeting; but, much as we wished to use it, the extreme strength of the _expletives_ was considered to transgress the borders of expediency!

We invited Prof. Rolleston to give us his support. The following was his reply:—

“Oxford, Nov. 28th, 1875.

“Dear Miss Cobbe,

“I would have answered your letter before had I been able to make up
my mind to do as you ask. This, however, I think I should not, in the
interests of the line of legislation which I advocate, do well to do.
I believe I speak with greater weight from keeping an independent
position. And as I have a great desire to throw away none of the
advantages which that position gives me, I am obliged to decline your
invitation. Allow me to say that I am much gratified by your writing
to ask me to do what I decline to do out of considerations of
expediency.

“It is also a great pleasure to me to think that what I said at
Bristol has met with your approbation. The bearing of parts at the end
or towards the end of that Address upon the future of Vivisection was,
I hope, tolerably obvious.

“I am,
“Yours very truly,
“GEORGE ROLLESTON.”

The newly-formed Society had been clumsily named by Dr. Hoggan: “The _Society for Protection of Animals liable to Vivisection_,” and its aim was: “_to obtain the greatest possible protection for animals liable to vivisection_.” I was obliged to yield to my colleague as regarded this awkward title which exactly defined the position he desired to take up; but it was a constant source of worry and loss to us. As soon as possible, however, after we had taken our offices in Victoria Street, I called our Society, unofficially and for popular use, simply “_The Victoria Street Society_.”

These offices are large and handsome, and so conveniently situated that the Society has retained them ever since. They are on the first floor of a house—formerly numbered “1,” now numbered “20,”—in Victoria Street, ten or eleven doors up the street from the Broad Sanctuary and the Westminster Palace Hotel; and with Westminster Abbey and the Towers of the Houses of Parliament in view from the street door. The offices contain an ante-room (now piled with our papers), a large airy room with two windows for the clerks, a Secretary’s private room, and a spacious and lightsome Committee-room with three windows. Out of this last another room was accessible, which at one time was taken for my especial use. I put up bookshelves, pictures, curtains, and various little feminine relaxations, and thus covered, as far as might be, the frightful character of our work, so that friends should find our office no painful place to visit.

We did not let the grass grow under our feet after we had settled down in these offices. On the 20th March there went out from them to the neighbouring Home Office a Deputation to Mr. (now Lord) Cross to urge the Government to bring in a Bill in accordance with the recommendations of the Royal Commission. The Deputation was headed by Lord Shaftesbury, and included the Earl of Minto, Cardinal Manning, Mr. Froude, Mr. Mundella, Sir Frederick Elliot, Col. Evelyn Wood, and Mr. Cowper-Temple. Mr. Carlyle was to have joined the Deputation, but held back sooner than accompany the Cardinal.

Chief Baron Kelly wrote us the following cordial expressions of regret for non-attendance:—

“Western Circuit, Winchester,
“4th March, 1876.

“The Lord Chief Baron presents his compliments to Miss Cobbe, and very
greatly regrets that, being engaged at the assize on the Western
Circuit until nearly the middle of April, he will be unable to
accompany the deputation to Mr. Cross on the subject of Vivisection,
to which, however, he earnestly wishes success.”

We had invited Canon Liddon, who was a subscriber to our funds from the first, to join this Deputation, but received from him the following reply:

“Amen Court, 6th March, 1876.

“My dear Miss Cobbe,

“I should be sincerely glad to be able to obey your kind wishes in the
matter of the proposed Deputation, if I could. But I am unable to be
in London again between to-morrow and April 1st, and this, I fear will
make it impossible.

“I shall be sincerely glad to hear that the Deputation succeeds in
persuading the Home Secretary to make legislation on the Report of the
Vivisection Commission a Government question. Mr. Hutton appeared to
me to resist the —— criticisms of the _Times_ on the Report very
admirably!

“Thanking you for your note,
“I am, my dear Miss Cobbe,
“Yours very truly,
“H. P. LIDDON.”

A few weeks afterwards when I invited him to attend a meeting he wrote again a letter, to the last sentence of which I desire to call attention as embodying the opinion of this eminent man on the _human_ moral interest involved in our crusade.

“Christ Church, Oxford,
“May 22nd, 1876.

“My dear Miss Cobbe,

“I sincerely wish that I could obey your summons. But, as a professor
here, I have public duties on Thursday, the 1st of June, which I
cannot decline or transfer to other hands.

“I think I told you I was a useless person for these good purposes;
and so, you see, it is.

“Still you are very well off in the way of speakers, and will not miss
such a person as I. Heartily do I hope that the meeting may reward the
trouble you have taken about it by strengthening Lord Carnarvon’s
hands. The cause you have at heart is of _even greater importance to
human character than to the physical comfort of those of our ‘fellow
creatures’ who are most immediately concerned_.

“I am, my dear Miss Cobbe,
“Yours very truly,
“H. P. LIDDON.”

The Deputation of March 20th to the Home Office was most favourably received, and our Society was invited to submit to Government suggestions respecting the provisions of the intended Bill. These suggestions were framed at a Committee held at our office on the 30th March, and they were adopted by Government after being approved by its official advisers, and presented by Lord Carnarvon in the House of Lords. The second reading took place on the 22nd May. On that occasion Lord Coleridge made a most judicious speech in defence of the Bill, and Lord Shaftesbury the long and beautiful one reprinted in our pamphlet, “_In Memoriam_.” The next morning all the newspapers came out with leading articles in praise of the Bill. It is hard now to realise that, previous to undergoing the medical pressure which has twisted the minds—(or at least the _pens_)—of three-fourths of the press, even the great paper which has been our relentless opponent for 17 years was then our cordial supporter. Everything at that time looked fair for us. The Bill, as we had drafted it, did, practically, fulfil Mr. Hutton’s aspiration. No experiment whatever under any circumstances was permitted on a dog, cat, horse, ass, or mule; nor any on any other animal except under conditions of complete anæsthesia from beginning to end. The Bill included Licenses, but no Certificates dispensing with the above provisions. Our hopes of carrying this bill seemed amply justified by the reception it received from the House of Lords and the Press; and from a great Conference of the R.S.P.C.A. and its branches, held on the 23rd May. We held our first General Meeting at Westminster Palace Hotel on the 1st June and resolutions in support of the Bill were passed enthusiastically; Lord Shaftesbury presiding, and the Marquis of Bute, Lord Glasgow, Cardinal Manning and others speaking with great spirit. It only needed, to all appearance, that the Bill should be pushed through its final stage in the Lords and sent down to the House of Commons, to secure its passage intact that same Session.

At this most critical moment, and through the whole month of June, Lord Carnarvon, in whose hands the Bill lay, was drawn away from London and occupied by the illness and death of Lady Carnarvon. No words can tell the anxiety and alarm this occasioned us, when we learned that a large section of the medical profession, which had so far seemed quiescent if not approving, had been roused by their chief wire-puller into a state of exasperation at the supposed “insult” of proposing to submit them to legal control in experimenting on living animals, (as they were already subjected to it, by the Anatomy Act, in dissecting dead bodies). These doctors, to the number of 3,000, signed a Memorial to the Home Secretary, calling on him to modify the Bill so as practically to reverse its character, and make it a measure, no longer protecting vivisected animals from torture, but vivisectors from prosecution under Martin’s Act. This Memorial was presented on the 10th July by a Deputation, variously estimated at 300 and at 800 doctors, who, in either case, were sufficiently numerous to overflow the purlieus of the Home Office and to overawe Mr. Cross. On the 10th of August the Bill—essentially altered in submission to the medical memorialists—was brought by Mr. Cross into the House of Commons, and was read a second time. On the 15th August, 1876, it received the Royal Assent and became the Act 39–40 Vict., c. 77, commonly called the “Vivisection Act.”

The world has never seemed to me quite the same since that dreadful time. My hopes had been raised so high to be dashed so low as even to make me fear that I had done harm instead of good, and brought fresh danger to the hapless brutes for whose sake, as I realised more and more their agonies, I would have gladly died. I was baffled in an aim nearer to my heart than any other had ever been, and for which I had strained every nerve for many months; and of all the hundreds of people who had seemed to sympathise and had signed our Memorials and petitions, there were none to say: “_This shall not be!_” Justice and Mercy seemed to have gone from the earth.

We left London,—the Session and the summer being over, and came as usual to Wales; but our enjoyment of the beauty of this lovely land had in great measure vanished. Even after twenty years my friend and I look back to our joyous summers before that miserable one, and say, “Ah! _that_ was when we knew very little of Vivisection.”

In my despair I wrote several letters of bitter reproach to the friends in Parliament who had allowed our Bill to be so mutilated as that the _British Medical Journal_ crowed over it, as affording full liberty to “science”; and I also wrote to several newspapers saying that after this failure to obtain a reasonable restrictive Bill, I, for one, should labour henceforth to obtain total prohibition. In reply to my letter (I fear a very petulant one) Lord Shaftesbury wrote me this full and important explanation which I commend to the careful reading of such of our friends as desire now to rescind the Act of 1876.

“Castle Wemyss, Wemyss Bay, N.B.,
“Aug. 16th, 1876.

“Dear Miss Cobbe,

“Until we shall have seen the Act in print we cannot form a just
estimate of the force of the amendments. Some few, so I see by the
papers, were introduced in Committee, after my last interview with Mr.
Cross; but of their character I know nothing. I am disposed, however,
to believe that he would not have admitted anything of real
importance.

“Mr. Cross’s difficulties were very great at all times; but they
increased much as the Session was drawing to a close. The want of
time, the extreme pressure of business, the active malignity of the
Scientific men, and the indifference of his Colleagues, left the
Secretary of State in a very weak and embarrassing position.

“Your letter, which I have just received, asks whether ‘the Bill
cannot be turned out in the House of Lords?’ The reply is that,
whether advisable or unadvisable, it cannot now be done, for the
Parliament is prorogued.

“In the Bill as submitted to me, just before the second reading at a
final interview with Mr. Cross, Mr. Holt and Lord Cardwell being
present, some changes were made which I by no means approved. But the
question, then, was simply, ‘The Bill as propounded, or no Bill,’ for
Mr. Cross stoutly maintained that, without the alterations suggested,
he had no hope of carrying anything at all. I reverted, therefore, to
my first opinion, stated at the very commencement of my co-operation
with your Committee, that it was of great importance, nay
indispensable, to obtain a Bill, however imperfect, which should
condemn the practice, put a limit on the exercise of it, and give us a
foundation on which to build amendments hereafter as evidence and
opportunity shall be offered to us.

“The Bill is of that character. I apprehended that if there were no
Bill then, there would be none at any time. No private Member, I
believe, and I still believe, could undertake such a measure with even
a shadow of hope and there was more than doubt, whether a Secretary of
State would, again, entangle himself with so bitter and so wearisome a
question in the face of all Science, and the antipathies of most of
his Colleagues. Public sympathy would have declined, and would not
have easily been aroused a second time. The public sympathy at its
best, was only noisy, and not effective; and this assertion is proved
by the few signatures to petitions, compared with the professed
feeling; and by the extreme difficulty to raise any funds in
proportion to the exigency of the case.

“The evidence, too, given to the Commission, which was, after all, our
main reliance, would have grown stale; and, the Physiologists would
have taken good care that, for some time at least, nothing should
transpire to take its place.

“We have gained an enactment that Experiments shall be performed by
none but Licensed Persons, thereby excluding, should the Act be well
enforced, the host of young students and their bed-chamber practices.

“We have gained an enactment that all experiments shall be performed
under the influence of Anæsthetics;[33] and, thirdly, the greatest
enactment of all, that the Secretary of State is responsible for the
due execution of all these provisions in Parliament, and in his
Office, instead of the College of Physicians, or some such
unreachable, and intangible Body, as many Secretaries of State, except
Mr. Cross, would have evasively, appointed.

“This provision under the Statutes, so unexpected, and valuable, could
have been suggested to Parliament by a Secretary of State only, and I
feel sure that no Secretary of State in any ‘Liberal’ Administration
would listen to the proposal; and I very much doubt whether Mr. Cross
himself, had his present Bill been rejected, would have, in the case
of a new Bill, repeated his offer of making it a measure for which the
Cabinet has to answer.

“I have seen your letter to the _Echo_ and the _Daily News_. You are
quite justified in your determination to agitate the country on the
subject of vivisection, and obtain, if it be possible, the total
abolition of it. Such an issue may be within reach, and it is only by
experience that we can ascertain how far such a blessed consummation
is practicable. You will have a good deal of sympathy with your
efforts, and from no one more than from myself.

“Yours truly,
“SHAFTESBURY.”

When we all returned to town in October, the Committee placed on the _Minutes_ a letter from me, saying that I could only retain the office of Honorary Secretary if the Society should adopt the principle of total prohibition. A circular was sent out calling for votes on the point, and by the 22nd November, 1876, the Resolution was carried, “That the Society would watch the existing Act with a view to the enforcement of its restrictions and its extension to the total prohibition of painful experiments on animals.”

In February, 1877, the Committee, to my satisfaction, unanimously agreed to support Mr. Holt’s Bill for total prohibition; and in aid thereof exhibited on the hoardings of London 1,700 handbills and 300 posters, which were enlarged reproductions of the illustrations of vivisection from the Physiological Hand-books. These posters certainly were more effective than as many thousands of speeches and pamphlets; and the indignation of the scientific party sufficiently proved that such was the case. On the 27th April we held our second annual meeting in support of Mr. Holt’s Bill, and had for speakers Lord Shaftesbury, the good Bishop of Winchester Dr. Harold-Browne, (now, alas! dead), Lord Mount-Temple, Prof. Sheldon Amos, Cardinal Manning, and Prince Lucien Bonaparte. The last remarkable man and erudite scholar (who most closely resembled his uncle in person, if we could imagine Napoleon I. commanding only armies _of books_!), was, from first to last, a warm friend of our cause. After this meeting we elected him Vice-President and here is his letter of acknowledgment:—

“Prince Lucien Bonaparte to Miss F. P. C.
“6, Norfolk Terrace, Bayswater,
“4th May, 1877.

“My dear Miss Cobbe,

“I feel highly honoured at being nominated one of the Vice-Presidents
of the Society for Protection of Animals liable to vivisection, and
ask you to return the Committee my best thanks.

“I am a great admirer of a Society which, like yours, opposes so
strongly the abominable practice of vivisection, because for my own
part, I consider it, even in its mildest form, as a shame to Science,
a dishonour to modern civilisation, and (what I think more important)
a great offence against the law of God.

“Believe me, my dear Miss Cobbe,
“Yours very sincerely,
“L. BONAPARTE.”

Here are some further letters concerned with that meeting or written to me soon afterwards:—

“Christ Church, Oxford,
“March 26th, 1877.

“My dear Miss Cobbe,

“I beg to thank you sincerely for your kind letter.

“So far as I can see there is, I fear, little chance of my being at
liberty to take part in the proceedings on the 27th of April.

“However, with the names which you announce, you will be more than
able to dispense with any assistance that I could lend to the common
object. You will, I trust, be able to strengthen Mr. Holt’s hands. If
what I have heard of his measure is at all accurate, it seems to be at
once moderate and efficient.

“I was much struck by an observation which you were, I think, said to
have made the other day at Bristol, to the effect that as matters now
stand everything depends upon the discretion, or rather, upon the
moral sympathies of the Home Secretary. Mr. Cross, I believe, would
always do well in all such matters. But it does not do to reckon with
the Roman Empire as if it were always to be governed by a Marcus
Aurelius.

“I am, my dear Miss Cobbe,
“Yours very truly,
“H. P. LIDDON.”

“House of Commons,
“26th March.

“Dear Miss Cobbe,

“I am sorry I cannot undertake to speak at your meeting on the 27th
April. I am not sure that I shall be in London on that day, but
request you to send me any notice of the meeting.

“My time and strength are somewhat overtaxed owing to an inability,
and I may add indisposition, to say No when I think I may be useful. I
am, however, I can assure you, in sympathy with you in your attempt to
put down torture in every form.

“I am, yours very sincerely,
“S. MORLEY.”
(Samuel Morley, M.P.)

“My dear Miss Cobbe,

“I will come in at some stage of your proceedings. I am bound first to
Convocation—and am engaged at Kingston before 5.

“What I should like would be to thank Lord Shaftesbury; but this must
depend on the time that I come, and _that_ must depend on the
exigencies of Convocation.

“Yours truly,
“A. P. STANLEY.
(The Dean of Westminster.)

“April 25th, 1877.”

“My dear Miss Cobbe,

“I am very sorry that through absence from home my answer to your note
has been delayed. I shall not be able to take part in your meeting on
the 27th, for I am not in a state of health to take part in any public
meeting; but if I am at all able I should like much to attend it and
hear for myself the views of the speakers. I have not expressed
publicly any opinion on the question of Vivisection, being anxious at
first to await the determination of the Commission, and then to see
how the restrictions were likely to work.

“I confess that my own mind is leaning very strongly to the conclusion
that there is no safe, right course other than entire prohibition. The
more I think of it the more I dread the brutality which in spite of
the influence of the best men will inevitably be developed in our
young Experimenters, in these days of almost fanatical devotion to
scientific research. It seems to me to more than counterbalance the
physical advantages to our sick what may grow out of the practice of
vivisection.

“And I am very sceptical about these physical advantages. I doubt
whether the secrets of nature can be successfully discovered by
torture, any more than the secrets of hearts. We have abandoned the
one endeavour, finding the results to be by no means worth the cost. I
am persuaded that we shall soon, for the same reason, have to abandon
the other.