Chapter XVI: Part IV: The Case Against Anti-Vivisection (3)

1. "Your question _re_ curare is easily answered. We did _no_
experiments with it during the past year. Indeed, I have given
it up almost entirely for years, chiefly because it is very
difficult to get a preparation which--I suppose from
impurities--does not seriously affect the heart. There might
still be occasions during which it is necessary to use it--if,
_e.g._ the _least_ muscular movement would vitiate the results
of an experiment. But I find it possible in nearly all cases to
get such absolute quiescence with morphia or chloral (besides
ether and chloroform) that to all intents and purposes I have
long given up the use of curare. Of course, if I had occasion
to use it, an anæsthetic would be administered at the same
time."

2. "I have asked those who worked in the physiological
laboratories in 1903 to give me a return of the number of
experiments done and of the number in which curare was used.
Including my own experiments, I find that 160 in all were made
under the License and Certificates B, EE, C. Curare was given in
four cases; in two of these the A.C.E. mixture was the
anæsthetic, in the other two ether."

3. At the third laboratory, during 1903, curare was given to
seven frogs deprived of their brains before it was given, and to
one rabbit under ether.

That was the whole use of curare, during a whole year, in three great Universities: at one, seven inanimate frogs, and one rabbit under ether; at another, four animals, under A.C.E. or ether; at another, nothing.

INCOMPLETE ANÆSTHESIA

It sometimes happens, at an operation, that the patient moves. Mostly, this movement is at the moment of the first incision through the skin; but it may be at some later period during the operation. He does not remember, after the operation, that he moved, or that he felt anything. That is incomplete anæsthesia, or light anæsthesia. The corneal reflex may be abolished, and still the patient may move.

Seven years ago some experiments were made in this country by an American surgeon. In the published account of them, it was said that one of the animals was, at one time, under incomplete anæsthesia, and that, in the case of another animal, the anæsthesia was at one time overlooked. This latter phrase meant not that the anæsthetic had been left off, but that it had been given in excess, so that the blood-pressure suddenly fell. The character of the experiments, and the occurrence of these two phrases about the anæsthesia, roused some criticism, and the Home Office instituted an inquiry into the matter. "That inquiry," it said, October 11th, 1899, "resulted in showing no evidence whatever that the animals experimented on by Dr. Crile felt pain. On the contrary, all the evidence shows they did not." The Act does not go into questions of corneal reflex, and unconscious muscular movements, and all the undefinable shades between incomplete anæsthesia and complete anæsthesia and profound anæsthesia. "The only substantial question," says the Home Office, "is whether or no the animal has been during the operation under the influence of an anæsthetic of sufficient power to prevent it feeling pain. This is the requirement of the law." We cannot refuse to call morphia and chloral anæsthetics, for there are deaths every year from an over-dose of them. And we cannot admit that an animal under an anæsthetic, because it makes a movement, is in pain or is conscious; for we know that a patient under operation may move yet feel nothing. Every hospital surgeon, and every anæsthetist, who has seen a whole legion of patients go under chloroform or ether and come out of it, and everybody who has been under these anæsthetics, they all know that incomplete anæsthesia is not "sham anæsthesia," and that movements, even purposive movements, may occur without consciousness, without pain, alike in men and in animals.

ONE ANIMAL AND ONE EXPERIMENT

When the Home Office allows a licensee to make a certain number of experiments, it means that he may experiment on that number of animals and no more. The Home Office, having heard what the experiments are to be, where they are to be made, on what kind of animals, and for what purpose, and having taken advice about them, allows him to make a fixed number, and adds any restrictions that it likes, _e.g._ that he must send in a preliminary report when he has made half that number. And one thing is certain, that one experiment = one animal, and that 10 experiments = 10 animals, and no more. Everybody knows that, who knows anything at all about the administration of the Act.

Now take a false statement, which has been made again and again during many years, that one experiment = any number of animals, and observe how it spread.

1. In the House of Commons, on March 12th, 1897, Mr. MacNeill asked whether any record were kept of the number of animals used in experiments during 1895, and said that 200 or 300 animals are sometimes used in a single experiment, and that 80 or 90 is a common number. The Home Secretary answered: "The honourable member is under an entire misapprehension. The number of animals used does not exceed the number of experiments given in the return."

2. A year later, May 18th, 1898, at the Annual Meeting of the National Society, Mr. MacNeill said again: "Any one casually reading that report (the Inspector's report to Government) would imagine that each experiment was on the body of a single animal. It is nothing of the kind. An experiment is a series of investigations in some particular branch, and sometimes 20, 30, or 40 animals are sacrificed in the one experiment." The National Society published this speech in its official journal.

3. A few weeks later, an anonymous letter in the _Bradford Observer_ said, "Any one casually reading the report would imagine that each experiment was on the body of a single animal. It is nothing of the kind. An experiment is a series of investigations in some particular branch, and sometimes 20, 30, or 40 animals are sacrificed in the one experiment."

4. On August 1st, 1898, the National Society published this letter in its official journal, under the heading, "Our Cause in the Press."

5. On October 21st, 1902, a letter in a provincial paper said that "one experiment" means "not one animal, but a series of operations on many animals."

6. In January 1903, the National Society admitted that its action in 1898 (see 4) was "unfortunate."

7. On June 25, 1903, in Parliament, Mr. MacNeill again said that "an experiment" did not mean one operation, but a series of researches, "often performed by persons who had no more skill than the children who broke up a watch."

8. About this time, the same false statement was made by an Anti-vivisection Society at Manchester.

9. A little later, it was made by the National Canine Defence League, in these words, "Each experiment may include any number of dogs. There is no limit fixed by law." On January 11th, 1904, in the _Times_, the leaflet containing this and other "grossly false and misleading statements" was vehemently denounced by the National Society.

It would be hard to find a better instance of the spreading of a false report. An experiment? Oh, it is any number of animals--20 of them, 30 of them; 200, 300 of them; hecatombs, and triple hecatombs; any young doctor can get leave to cut them up.

CERTIFICATES E AND EE

For all inoculations and similar proceedings, Certificate A is necessary. For all experiments where the animal is allowed to recover from the anæsthetic, Certificate B is necessary. But these certificates do not extend to the dog, the cat, the horse, the mule, or the ass. The three latter animals are also scheduled under Certificate F; the dog and the cat under Certificates E and EE. That is to say, to inoculate a dog, _e.g._ for the study of the preventive treatment against distemper, it is necessary to hold a License, _plus_ Certificate A, _plus_ Certificate E; to operate on a dog, and let him recover, it is necessary to hold a License, _plus_ Certificate B, _plus_ Certificate EE.

And it is certain that the Home Office does enforce and emphasise here the spirit of the Act; and that it does guard and restrict and tie up Certificate EE with its own hands.

Now let us take an instance, which shows in a very unfavourable light the methods of the National Canine Defence League. Three years ago, certain experiments were made on dogs, for the purpose of finding the best way of resuscitating persons apparently drowned. The Home Secretary was asked whether he knew that certain of these experiments were to be made without anæsthetics; and he answered, "In view of the great importance of the subject in connection with the saving of human life, and of the strong recommendations received in support of the experiments, I have not felt justified in disallowing the certificates."

A great outcry was raised against these experiments by the National Anti-vivisection Society and the Canine Defence League. The National Society, in its official journal, August 1903, said that it was now proved, "that in England to-day experiments are performed without anæsthetics which involve inconceivable agony to dogs, and this with the deliberate permission of the Home Secretary." Mr. Coleridge made a public appeal to all humane societies, to go down with all their strength into Kent, on that not far distant day when the Home Secretary would have to face his constituents, and turn him out of Parliament. The Canine Defence League sent two memorials to the Home Office, circulated a petition, and issued leaflets, entitled _A National Scandal_, _Scientific Torture_, _A Peep behind the Scenes_, and so forth. We must consider one of these leaflets at some length; but first let us see what is the truth about these experiments. They were made by the Professor of Physiology at Edinburgh; and he has kindly written to me about them. _In every experiment, except two, the animal was, throughout the whole experiment, under complete anæsthesia with chloroform or ether. In two cases, and in two only, a small preliminary operation, under anæsthesia, having been performed, the animal was allowed to recover from the anæsthetic, or almost to recover from it, and was then and there submerged and drowned, at once and completely, to death; no attempt at resuscitation was made; it became unconscious in a little more than a minute._

In the face of these facts, what is to be said of the outcry raised by the Canine Defence League? They presented two memorials to the Home Secretary: they got up a monster petition with thousands of signatures; and they issued the following leaflet:---

SIGN THE NATION'S PETITION TO PARLIAMENT AGAINST THE
DISSECTION OF LIVE DOGS _In Medical Laboratories_ */

1. Dogs, on account of their docility and obedience to the word
of command, are the animals chiefly selected for torture.

2. Thousands of dogs are tortured yearly by licensed
experimenters.

3. The total number of experiments performed in 1902 was 14,906,
12,776 of which were without anæsthetics.

4. The Home Secretary stated in Parliament on July 22nd, 1903,
that neither the starving of animals to death nor the forced
over-feeding of animals were included in these returns.

5. Nor does the number 14,906 give the number of dogs used, for
each experiment may include any number of dogs--there is no
limit fixed by law.

6. The Home Secretary stated in Parliament on May 11th, 1903,
that at one laboratory alone in London 232 dogs were used for
vivisectional experiments last year.

7. There are now laboratories scattered over the whole of the
United Kingdom.

8. The Home Secretary stated in Parliament on 10th July 1903,
that one dog may be used _again_ and _again_ for vivisectional
experiment or demonstration--and this without anæsthetics.

Think of the condition of the poor dog between each
living-dissection.

Has not the time come for the nation to rise as one man and
say--

"This shall not be"?

It is no wonder that even the National Anti-vivisection Society, in a letter to the _Times_, December 11th, 1903, denounced this leaflet. The wonder is, that Mr. Pirkis, R.N., the chairman of the Canine League, tried to defend it. _This deplorable leaflet_, said the National Society: _It contains a series of grossly false and misleading statements._ Let us take it paragraph by paragraph. The first two paragraphs are grossly false. The third suppresses the truth. The fourth is grossly false; the Home Secretary said that neither the starving of animals to death nor the forced over-feeding of animals was included among the experiments _authorised or performed_. Paragraph five is grossly false. So is paragraph six: not one word was said about any experiments, either by the Home Secretary or by anybody else. The entire number of all dogs and cats together, under Certificates A, B, E, and EE, throughout the whole kingdom, that year, was 344. Paragraph eight is grossly false.

* * * * *

For want of space, it is impossible to consider all the special arguments of the anti-vivisection societies. Of course, among these special arguments, there are a few which have something in them. How could they all of them be utterly false? They go back over thirty years; they are drawn from all parts of the world. This incessant rummaging of medical books and journals, British and foreign; and all this everlasting espionage; the whole elaborate system of a sort of secret service--these methods, year in year out, are bound to find, now and again, a fault somewhere. But I do say, having read and re-read a vast quantity of the publications of these societies, that they are, taken as a whole, a standing disgrace to the cause; that they are tainted through and through with brutal language, imbecile jokes, and innumerable falsehoods; that they have neither the honesty, nor the common decency, which should justify them. Still, here it is that the money goes. There is _money in the business_; there is _milk in the cocoa-nut_; and _twopence more, and up goes the donkey_. These are the phrases used, by the National Anti-vivisection Society, of the bacteriologists, and the men who are working at cancer. But these societies, that spend thousands every year, what have they got to show for it all? They have, with much else of the same kind, the _Zoophilist_. Truly, a fine result; a high-class official journal, the _recognised organ of the anti-vivisection movement in England_.

Take, for a final instance, one or two of the things said about anæsthetics. On June 12th, 1897, in the _Echo_, Mr. Berdoe said that certain experiments, involving severe operations, had been made on dogs under morphia and curare. He based this assertion on the account of the experiments in the _Journal of Physiology_. On June 18th, Mr. Weir, in the House of Commons, called attention to this assertion; and the Home Secretary promised to inquire into the matter. On July 18th, Mr. Weir asked whether this inquiry had been made; and the Home Secretary answered:--

"Yes, I have made full inquiry into the allegations contained in
the letter and statement which the honourable member forwarded
to me, and find that they are absolutely baseless. The
experiments referred to were performed on animals under full
chloroform anæsthesia; the morphia, to which alone allusion was
made in the published account of the experiments, being used in
addition. Curare was used, but not as an anæsthetic."

It is simple enough. The gentlemen who made the experiments did not know that the National Society buys and ransacks the _Journal of Physiology_; or did not care. But the National Society called this answer a "Fruitless Official Denial"; and Mr. Coleridge sent an "explanatory letter" to the London daily papers, accusing all the experimenters of "amending their published record so as to make it fit in with the Government report." In 1899, the National Society published that sentence, which has already been quoted, about the _Nine Circles_, and the "whiff of chloroform possibly administered." In 1900, it said, "The chloroformists of the physiological laboratories are doubtless common porters, with no technical knowledge of their work." In 1901, it said, "Our readers will remember that Mr. Coleridge has had more than one battle with the Home Office on the question of complete and incomplete anæsthesia. We need hardly say that the victory on each occasion rested with our Honorary Secretary." And again, "By many turns of the anti-vivisection screw we have at last extracted (from the Home Office) the admission that pain is not unknown in the laboratories." In 1902, it said, "The blessed word anæsthesia warns off the profane anti-vivisectionist who would rob the altars of science of their victims." Take later instances. In 1903, we find Mr. Wood saying that _we may be sure the narcosis becomes profound when the inspectors knock at the door of the laboratory_; Dr. Brand, saying that _in all experiments, other than inoculations, it is probable that only a whiff of chloroform is given, to satisfy the experimenter's conscience, and to enable him to make humane statements to the public_; and Mr. Berdoe, saying that _vivisectors, where they use anything except curare, employ sham anæsthetics_.

Beside such statements as these, there is the argument from the very rare action of morphia as a stimulant (see _British Medical Journal_, January 14th, 1899); but this argument is not in question. The real argument is, that a man who makes experiments on animals is likely enough to tell lies about them. As Mr. Berdoe says, of a very explicit statement about anæsthetics, made by the late Professor Roy, _It is and must be absolutely untrue_. Read again that sentence about the "whiff of chloroform." The phrase is thirty years old; but, like Sir William Fergusson's evidence in 1875, it is still in use. Or take that one phrase--_where they use anything but curare_. It affords, in six words, a perfect instance of the anti-vivisectionist at his worst.

IV. "OUR CAUSE IN PARLIAMENT"

Under this heading the official journal of the National Society reports questions asked in Parliament, and the answers given to them. This aspect of the work of the anti-vivisection societies, and the part taken by them in elections, and their plans to amend or abolish the Act, must be noted here.

In one year, the National Society spent £888, 13s. 2d. on "purely electoral work." That is a very large sum, when we think of _the grave injury done to the cause of mercy by the deplorable waste of money spent in perfectly_ _unnecessary offices and salaries_. The Society's journal tells us something of this electoral work:--

1899.--"The Parliamentary League has again been successful in
its work at bye-elections. At ---- the two candidates were
approached, and both gave more or less satisfactory answers.
Sir ----'s reply was thought to be the more satisfactory one,
and consequently our supporters gave him their votes. As our
readers are aware, he was returned." (In a later number, the
_Zoophilist_ hints that "further pressure" may be applied to
this gentleman in Parliament.)

1900.--"The efforts of the Society will not be confined to
forwarding the interests of any one candidate or any one party.
As soon as the names of candidates were announced, Mr. Coleridge
issued to all of them a circular letter demanding their views on
the vivisection question. The numerous replies which have
already arrived, and are still arriving, afford results more
gratifying than we for a moment anticipated, and show clearly
that we are now recognised throughout Great Britain to be a
power that cannot be ignored.... Volunteer workers are also
being despatched from headquarters to various places. Readers
who have votes or who will help in any way are invited to
communicate immediately to the head office, when information
about the views of their candidates will be at once sent to
them."

The London Society also, like the National Society, desires to have a representative in Parliament; and this desire is stated in emphatic words in one of its reports. The general tone of that report has already been noted. It loves big black headlines, NO SURRENDER, THE AWAKENING CHURCHES, A TRUCULENT SCIENCE, THE SINEWS OF WAR, THE APPEAL TO THE PEOPLE. They had better ensure the return of that opponent of vaccination who says that you can bring any member of Parliament to your knees.

And, of course, these societies follow the successful candidates on their subsequent careers. "In Parliament," says the London Society, "the Society's work is carried on as occasion permits. Members of Parliament are written to or are personally seen at the House of Commons. Questions are drafted for them to submit to the Home Secretary, and one or more officers of the Society are in constant attendance at the House of Commons when the question of vivisection is likely to be raised." And the National Society says, "In order to stimulate attention (to Mr. Coleridge's Bill) our lecturer has been assiduous in his attendance in the lobby of the House during the present session, and by personal interviews has been able to arouse a good deal of interest in it on both sides of the House." It is evident that "Our Cause in Parliament" is urged with diligence, and is not left to stand or fall according to the unsolicited conscience of what the London Society calls the _average lay member_. Take, for example, the system of drafting questions to be put to the Home Secretary. It may or may not take off the edge of sincerity; anyhow, the question should be drafted with great care. On February 26th, 1900, a question was asked as to certain observations which were alleged to have been made on living animals, but in fact had been made on their organs removed after death. The National Society said of this mistake:--

"We wish our readers to know that the question was not prompted
by any communication from our Society, and we think it
unfortunate that members of Parliament should be asked to put
questions in the House by persons who do not realise that
questions based on inaccurate premises can do nothing but harm
to our cause. It is hard that the whole anti-vivisection
movement should suffer through the carelessness and indolence of
those who will neither be at the pains to avoid inaccuracy by
their own study and investigation, nor by consulting the
National Society's officers."

These careless, indolent, inaccurate persons, who think so lightly of the National Society's officers, and draft a question so silly that the whole cause is damaged, bring us back to the point whence we started: the want of unity between the societies, the frequent jarring of one with another. We have still to see something of the dealings of the National Society with Government. It is at its best, doubtless, in the formal letters from Mr. Coleridge to the Home Office; but these, after all, are his own work, and the Society cannot take the credit of them. _Per contra_, we may credit to the Society, and not to Mr. Coleridge, certain threats to Ministers in 1898:--

... "Should we be so unfortunate as to be left by you without
such an open assurance, we shall feel it our duty to employ the
strength and resources of this Society in an endeavour to
prevent your return to Parliament at the next election. We know
of a large and increasing number of your constituents who are
ready, in the unfortunate event of your being unable to reassure
them as to your attitude in the matter of endowing torture, to
place humanity above party politics."

... "This Society will feel it to be its duty to use every means
in its power to prevent your return to Parliament at the next
election."

... "We beg leave to inform you that at the next election the
forces of this Society will be used with the utmost vigour to
prevent your return to Parliament. We know of many, and shall no
doubt soon secure more of your constituents, pledged to place
humanity above party and vote against you on the next occasion
that you present yourself."

What are we to think of these three letters? The resources of the Society, given with some vague hope of keeping animals out of pain, are to be used for keeping Ministers out of Parliament. Note the bullying tone of the letters. It is the same thing, two years later, at the General Election, with the heckling of candidates: _We are now recognised throughout Great Britain to be a power that cannot be ignored_. A Society that bullies Ministers of State, what will it not do to the average lay member?

V. A HISTORICAL PARALLEL

It is a long way, from the plain duty to take care of animals, to the arguments and general behaviour of these societies. Of course, we have seen them here from the most unfavourable point of view. From that point of view, apart from any more favourable aspect, they have their parallel in history. The two instances are, in some ways, very unlike: but the parallelism is worthy of note. The historical instance is more than fifty years old: we have what was said, in 1851, against his worst opponents, by a man who had an unpopular cause to defend. Newman, in 1851, gave a set of lectures on _The Present Position of Catholics in England_: and his sayings, some of them, seem apt to our present subject. Take the following examples. Only, here and there, a word is altered, or a phrase left out, that all offence may be avoided:--

... "We should have cause to congratulate ourselves, though we
were able to proceed no further than to persuade our opponents
to argue out one point before going on to another. It would be
much even to get them to give up what they could not defend, and
to promise that they would not return to it. It would be much to
succeed in hindering them from making a great deal of an
objection till it is refuted, and then suddenly considering it
so small that it is not worth withdrawing. It would be much to
hinder them from eluding a defeat on one point by digressing
upon three or four others, and then presently running back to
the first, and then to and fro, to second, third, and fourth,
and treating each in turn as if quite a fresh subject on which
not a word had yet been said."

... "No evidence against us is too little: no infliction too
great. Statement without proof, though inadmissible in every
other case, is all fair when we are concerned. An opponent is at
liberty to bring a charge against us, and challenge us to
refute, not any proof he brings, for he brings none, but his
simple assumption or assertion. And perhaps we accept his
challenge, and then we find we have to deal with matters so
vague or so minute, so general or so particular, that we are at
our wits' end to know how to grapple with them."

... "For myself, I never should have been surprised, if, in the
course of the last nine months of persecution, some scandal in
this or that part of our cause had been brought to light and
circulated through the country to our great prejudice. No such
calamity has occurred: but oh! what would not our enemies have
paid for only one real and live sin to mock us withal. Their
fierce and unblushing effort to fix such charges where they were
impossible, shows how many eyes were fastened on us all over the
country, and how deep and fervent was the aspiration that some
among us might turn out to be a brute or a villain."

... "We are dressed up like a scarecrow to gratify, on a large
scale, the passions of curiosity, fright, and hatred. Something
or other men must fear, men must loathe, men must suspect, even
if it be to turn away their minds from their own inward
miseries.... A calumny against us first appeared in 1836, it
still thrives and flourishes in 1851. I have made inquiries, and
I am told I may safely say that in the course of the fifteen
years that it has lasted, from 200,000 to 250,000 copies have
been put into circulation in America and England. A vast number
of copies has been sold at a cheap rate, and given away by
persons who ought to have known that it was a mere fiction. I
hear rumours concerning some of the distributors, which, from
the respect which I wish to entertain towards their names, I do
not know how to credit."

... "The perpetual talk against us does not become truer because
it is incessant; but it continually deepens the impression, in
the minds of those who hear it, that we are impostors. There is
no increase of logical cogency; a lie is a lie just as much the
tenth time it is told as the first; or rather more, it is ten
lies instead of one; but it gains in rhetorical influence....
Thus the meetings and preachings which are ever going on against
us on all sides, though they may have no argumentative force
whatever, are still immense factories for the creation of
prejudice."

... "The Prejudiced Man takes it for granted that we, who differ
from him, are universally impostors, tyrants, hypocrites,
cowards, and slaves. If he meets with any story against us, on
any or no authority, which does but fall in with this notion of
us, he eagerly catches at it. Authority goes for nothing;
likelihood, as he considers it, does instead of testimony; what
he is now told is just what he expected. Perhaps it is a random
report, put into circulation merely because it had a chance of
succeeding, or thrown like a straw to the wind; perhaps it is a
mere publisher's speculation, who thinks that a narrative of
horrors will pay well for the printing: it matters not, he is
equally convinced of its truth: he knows all about it
beforehand; it is just what he always has said; it is the old
tale over again a hundred times. Accordingly he buys it by the
thousand, and sends it about with all speed in every direction,
to his circle of friends and acquaintance, to the newspapers,
to the great speakers at public meetings.... Next comes an
absolute, explicit, total denial or refutation of the precious
calumny, whatever it may be, on unimpeachable authority. The
Prejudiced Man simply discredits this denial, and puts it aside,
not receiving any impression from it at all, or paying it the
slightest attention. This, if he can: if he cannot, if it is
urged upon him by some friend, or brought up against him by some
opponent, he draws himself up, looks sternly at the objector,
and then says the very same thing as before, only with a louder
voice and more confident manner. He becomes more intensely and
enthusiastically positive, by way of making up for the
interruption, of braving the confutation, and of showing the
world that nothing whatever in the universe will ever make him
think one hair-breadth more favourably than he does think, than
he ever has thought, and than his family ever thought before
him. About our state of mind, our views of things, our ends and
objects, our doctrines, our defence of them, he absolutely
refuses to be enlightened.... The most overwhelming refutations
of the calumnies brought against us do us no good at all. We
were tempted, perhaps, to say to ourselves, 'What _will_ they
have to say in answer to this? Now at last the falsehood is put
down for ever, it will never show its face again.' Vain hope!
Such is the virtue of prejudice--it is ever reproductive; future
story-tellers and wonder-mongers, as yet unknown to fame, are
below the horizon, and will unfold their tale of horror, each in
his day, in long succession."

... "Perhaps it is wrong to compare sin with sin, but I declare
to you, the more I think of it, the more intimately does this
Prejudice seem to me to corrupt the soul, even beyond those sins
which are commonly called more deadly. And why? because it
argues so astonishing a want of mere natural charity or love of
our kind. They can be considerate in all matters of this life,
friendly in social intercourse, charitable to the poor and
outcast, merciful towards criminals, nay, kind towards the
inferior creation, towards their cows, and horses, and swine;
yet, as regards us, who bear the same form, speak the same
tongue, breathe the same air, and walk the same streets,
ruthless, relentless, believing ill of us, and wishing to
believe it. They are tenacious of what they believe, they are
impatient of being argued with, they are angry at being
contradicted, they are disappointed when a point is cleared up;
they had rather that _we_ should be guilty than _they_ mistaken;
they have no wish at all we should not be unprincipled rogues
and bloodthirsty demons. They are kinder even to their dogs and
their cats than to us. Is it not true? can it be denied? is it
not portentous? does it not argue an incompleteness or hiatus in
the very structure of their moral nature? has not something, in
their case, dropped out of the list of natural qualities proper
to man?"

* * * * *

These sentences, many of them, might be used now to describe Anti-vivisection at its lowest level. It might keep a higher level: but we have seen that the literature, arguments, and general methods of the Anti-vivisection Societies fail to do that. The Parliamentary interviewer, the itinerant lecturer, and the letter-writer, are not, after all, of much help to any cause: and surely it is time, after all this waste of huge sums of money, that a Royal Commission should inquire, not only into experiments on animals, but also into Anti-vivisection.

INDEX

A

A, Certificate, 268, 286

_Abolitionist_, the, 302

Absorbable ligature, the, 264