PLEA 
 
 MERCY TO ANIMALS
 
 PLEA 
 
 FOR 
 
 MERCY TO ANIMALS 
 
 1. CLAIMS OF THE LOWER ANIMALS TO HUMANE TREATMENT FROM MAN. 
 II. VARIOUS FORMS OF NEEDLESS SUFFERING INFLICTED BY MAN. 
 III. MEANS OF PREVENTION, LEGAL AND EDUCATIONAL. 
 JV, VIVISECTION, AND OTHER EXPERIMENTS ON LIVING ANIMALS. 
 
 JAMES MACAULAY, A.M., M.D. EDIN., 
 
 EDITOR OF THE "LEISURE HOUR." 
 
 "'Not one of them is forgotten before God." 
 
 LONDON : 
 THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY; 
 
 56, PATERNOSTER Row ; 65, ST. PAUL'S CHURCHYARD ; 
 
 AND 164, PICCADILLY. 
 MANCHESTER: CORPORATION STREET, BRIGHTON: WESTERN ROAD.
 
 " There is implanted by Nature in the heart of man, a noble and 
 excellent affection of mercy, extending even to the brute animals, 
 which, by the Divine appointment, are subjected to his dominion. 
 This, moreover, we may be assured of, that the more noble the 
 mind the more enlarged is this affection. Narrow and degenerate 
 minds think that such things do not pertain to them, but the nobler 
 part of mankind is affected by sympathy." 
 
 LOKD BACON. 
 
 2000424
 
 SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS. 
 
 i. 
 
 CLAIMS OF THE LOWER ANIMALS TO HUMANE TREATMENT FROM MAN. 
 
 The term cruelty to animals includes all kinds of needless suffering caused by 
 man Wanton cruelty less frequent than heedless cruelty Injury done by 
 want of thought as well as want of heart Heathen nations and the depraved 
 heart unmerciful Jeremy Bentham on the rights of the animal creation to 
 humane treatment The duty of humanity grounded on revealed religion as 
 well as natural law Dr. Chalmers on the duty of humanity to animals in 
 relation to Christianity Dr. George Wilson on the place of this duty in 
 Christian ethics Precepts of mercy to animals in the Mosaic code of laws 
 Other Scripture precepts and lessons on the subject The dominion of man 
 over the lower animals a delegated trust, not an absolute right Lord 
 Erskine's appeal Motives to humanity from reason and revelation God's 
 providential care of all His creatures Instinct and reason Instinct not 
 always an involuntary impulse Modifications of instinct Anecdotes of 
 instinct Instinct in man Intelligence in animals Fidelity, sagacity, and 
 other qualities in animals Have animals a future existence ? 
 
 II. 
 
 VARIOUS FORMS OF NEEDLESS SUFFERING INFLICTED BY MAN. 
 
 Sufferings of animals used for the food and other necessary uses of man Railway 
 transit of cattle Sea transit Modes of slaughtering cattle, sheep, poultry, 
 and other animals Cruelties to animals used to assist the labour of man 
 Right of animals labouring for man to the day of rest Cruelties to animals 
 for the amusement of man Brutal sports Field sports.
 
 SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS. 
 
 III. 
 
 MEANS OF PREVENTION, LEGAL AND EDUCATIONAL. 
 
 History of British legislation on cruelty to animals Royal Society for the Pre- 
 vention of Cruelty to Animals Jubilee Meeting, 1874 Queen Victoria's 
 letter Operations and influence of the Society Statutes for protection of 
 animals from cruelty Examples of cases prosecuted and convicted Legis- 
 lation should include cruelty to wild as well as domesticated animals 
 Public opinion and the press Influence of literature and art Cowper's 
 poetry Hogarth's "Four Stages of Cruelty" Education of the young 
 Study of natural history Prize essays Baroness Burdett Coutts and the 
 Ladies' Committee Class-books and school training The "Animal World," 
 and other useful publications. 
 
 IV. 
 
 VIVISECTION, AND OTHER EXPERIMENTS ON LIVING ANIMALS. 
 
 Prize essays of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals 
 Report of Committee of British Association for the Advancement of Science 
 Classes of experimental physiology in schools of medicine Demonstrations 
 of ascertained facts needless and cruel Use of chloroform and other 
 anaesthetics Professor Schiff, of Florence Introduction to England of 
 vivisection as practised in French schools Prosecution of Norwich vivi- 
 sectors Cruelties in London schools of physiology Dr. Johnson on 
 experiments on live animals Testimony of teachers of physiology to the 
 needless cruelty of such experiments Examples of cruel operations Exami- 
 nation of alleged results of vivisection Fallacies of this mode of research 
 Testimony of Sir Charles Bell, Dr. Barclay, Dr. Fletcher, Dr. Elliotson, Dr. 
 Carpenter, M. Legallois, Baron Cuvier, and others Proposed methods of 
 checking needless cruelties Proposals of Dr. Bardsley, Professor Haughton, 
 Sir Thomas Watson, and others Proposal for special legislation Appeal to 
 the medical profession.
 
 PLEA 
 
 FOE 
 
 MERCY TO ANIMALS. 
 
 I. 
 
 CLAIMS OF THE LOWER ANIMALS TO HUMANE 
 TREATMENT FROM MAN. 
 
 tHE term " cruelty to animals," in the following pages, 
 includes all kinds of ill-usage and needless suffering 
 which the lower animals undergo at the hand of man. 
 Comparatively a small proportion of this suffering is caused by 
 wanton cruelty. To inflict pain in cold blood, or for the sport 
 of the thing, may well be called not only inhuman but fiendish. 
 The very name of humanity implies some relation to the better 
 feelings of our nature ; while inhumanity points to that unmixed 
 spirit of evil by which man is degraded. A disposition to take 
 delight in the infliction of pain for its own sake, is so far 
 repugnant to the sympathies even of man's fallen nature, that 
 our efforts are to be directed more against ignorance and 
 thoughtlessness than against wilful cruelty. 
 
 The different kinds of animal sufferings must be dealt with 
 in different modes. Where these are inflicted by wilful cruelty, 
 stern repression is needed, and the helpless creatures must have 
 such protection as the law can give. In the punishment of 
 offenders of this class, the present penalties are not always 
 
 B
 
 10 CLAIMS OF THE LOWER ANIMALS. 
 
 suitable nor sufficient. Compared with a small fine or short 
 imprisonment, it is thought by some that corporal chastisement, 
 would be more powerful as a deterrent, as it would certainly 
 be the punishment most fitting for those who wantonly 
 inflict pain. In other cases our weapons must be educa- 
 tional rather than repressive. If the injuries are caused by 
 ignorance or by thoughtlessness, we must point out the reality 
 of the suffering, and try to awaken sympathy for dumb animals ; 
 teaching also that want of thought does not release from moral 
 responsibility and just blame. If the injuries are incidental, 
 and produced in the pursuit of some justifiable end, as in 
 destroying animal life for the uses of man, we have to see that 
 there be as little suffering as possible. The advancement of 
 human knowledge and happiness may rightly supersede the 
 claims of the lower animals, but we must examine how far these 
 benefits are real. The advancement of the healing art, for 
 example, might warrant the adoption of experiments on living 
 animals, but we must be satisfied that the results of vivisection 
 are such as justify the practice of it, and that these results can 
 be obtained in no other way. 
 
 It is only in recent times that this subject has obtained due 
 attention. In ancient times, there was among the nations no 
 recognition of common brotherhood, and little sympathy for 
 man, as man ; and no sense of those claims which the children 
 of one great family have upon each other for justice and 
 mercy. Patriotism was the most liberal of their virtues, and 
 within a sphere so contracted it would be in vain to look for 
 humanity to the brute creation. With the exception of a pas- 
 sage in Plutarch's Life of Cato the Censor, a brief reference 
 in one of Cicero's Familiar Letters, aud a few other allusions, I 
 do not know of any protest in the classical writers of antiquity 
 against cruelty to animals. On the contrary, the pages of
 
 CRUELTY OF HEATHEN NATIONS. 11 
 
 historians and poets abound with descriptions of the most cruel 
 amusements. We are told that in the horrible scenes of car- 
 nage in the Roman amphitheatre women took as intense an 
 interest as men, and even gave the signal for the death of the 
 combatants. Well might St. Paul, in his description of the 
 world before the advent of Christ, crown the black catalogue of 
 the crimes of heathen nations by declaring that they were " fall 
 of murder, implacable, unmerciful " (Rom. i. 29, 31). The 
 delight taken in the barbarous games of the circus was probably 
 in his thoughts, where not only beasts were tortured, but human 
 victims murdered for the sport of Roman citizens. And when 
 the same apostle describes " the fruits of the Spirit," as exhi- 
 bited by the Christian converts, he speaks of mercy, kindness, 
 gentleness. The disposition of mind is the same, whatever the 
 objects upon which it is exercised. These heathens were cruel, 
 whether looking on the combats of men or of the lower animals. 
 And we thus understand the principle conveyed in the ancient 
 Hebrew proverb, " A righteous man regardelh the life of his 
 beast ; but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel." 
 
 In speaking of cruelty among heathen nations, whether in 
 ancient times or in our own day, we do not forget apparent 
 exceptions. The old Egyptians protected and even worshipped 
 certain animals, and in India the destruction of any animal 
 life is by some regarded as an impious crime. But this is 
 utterly distinct from the habitual spirit of gentleness and 
 mercy arising from principle, not from superstition. Of all 
 ancient nations, and of modern people not Christian, the Jews 
 alone, in their laws and institutions, had regard to kind treat- 
 ment of animals, and this was because such treatment was 
 specially enjoined by Divine precepts. Of the enactments in 
 the Jewish code we shall speak presently. Tt was not, however, 
 till the Gospel of Christ had broughi a revelation for all the
 
 12 CLAIMS OF THE LOWEK ANIMALS. 
 
 world instead of for one nation, that the true spirit of Divine 
 love and compassion was diffused among men. The prejudices 
 which once opposed the progress of this Divine goodwill are 
 continually lessening. The barriers offered by difference of 
 nation, of country, of race, have been gradually removed ; and 
 it is not surprising that the exercise of compassion should be 
 extended beyond the equally arbitrary limit of our own species. 
 
 There is a remarkable passage in the works of Jeremy 
 Bentham, applying the principle of natural law to the rights 
 of animals. It is quoted by Sir Arthur Helps in his " Talks 
 about Animals and their Masters." " The day may come when 
 the rest of the animal creation may acquire those rights 
 which never could have been withheld from them but by the 
 hand of tyranny. It may come one day to be recognised that 
 the number of legs, the villosity of the skin, or the termination 
 of the os sacrum, are reasons insufficient for abandoning a 
 sensitive being to the caprice of a tormentor. What else is it 
 that should trace the insuperable line ? Is it the faculty of 
 reason, or perhaps the faculty of discourse ? But a full-grown 
 horse or dog is beyond comparison a more rational as well 
 as a more conversable animal than an infant of a day, a 
 week, or even a month old. But suppose the case were other- 
 wise, what could it avail ? The question is not ' Can they 
 reason ? ' nor ' Can they speak ? ' but ' Can they suffer ? ' : 
 
 It is well, however, to establish the duty of humanity to 
 animals on the broad ground of religious principle ; not natural 
 religion only, but the religion of the Bible. Very little good 
 will be done if the subject is regarded merely as a matter of 
 law and of police. Not thus can we deal with the subject in 
 the education of the young, or in appealing to public opinion. 
 There is no plea for kindness to animals so strong as that it is 
 harmonious with the spirit and the doctrines of Christianity.
 
 CHALMERS ON THE DUTY OF HUMANITY. l 
 
 " There is one aspect," says Dr. Chalmers, in the peroration 
 of his eloquent sermon on the subject, " there is one aspect in 
 which the duty of humanity to the lower animals may be 
 regarded as more profoundly and more peculiarly religious 
 than any one virtue which reciprocates, or is of mutual opera- 
 tion among the fellows of the same species. It is a virtue 
 which oversteps, as it were, the limits of a species, and which, 
 in this instance, prompts a descending movement on our part, 
 of righteousness and mercy towards those who have an inferior 
 place to ourselves in the scale of creation. The lesson of this 
 duty is not the circulation of benevolence within the limits of 
 one species. It is the transmission of it from one species to 
 another. The first is but the charity of a world. The second 
 is the charity of a universe. Had there been no such charity, 
 no descending current of love and of liberality from species to 
 species, what, I ask, would have become of ourselves ? Whence 
 have we learned this attitude of lofty unconcern about the 
 creatures who are beneath us? Not from those ministering 
 spirits who wait upon the heirs of salvation. Not from those 
 angels who circle the throne of heaven, and make all its arches 
 ring with joyful harmony, when but one sinner of this prostrate 
 world turns his footsteps towards them. Not from that mighty 
 and mysterious visitant, who unrobed Him of all His glories, 
 and bowed down His head unto the sacrifice, and still, from 
 the seat of His now exalted mediatorship, pours forth His 
 intercessions and His calls in behalf of the race He died for. 
 Finally, not from the eternal Father of all, in the pavilion of 
 whose residence there is the golden treasury of all those 
 bounties and beatitudes that roll over the face of nature, and 
 from the footstool of whose empyreal throne there reaches a 
 golden chain of providence to the very humblest of His family. 
 He who has given His angels charge concerning us, means that
 
 14 CLAIMS OF THE LOWER ANIMALS. 
 
 the tide of beneficence should pass from order to order, through all 
 the ranks of His magnificent creation ; and we ask, is it with 
 man that this goodly provision is to terminate, or shall he, 
 with all his sensations of present blessedness, and all his visions 
 of future glory let down upon him from above, shall he turn 
 him selfishly and scornfully away from the rights of those 
 creatures whom God hath placed in dependence under him ? 
 
 " We know that the cause of poor and unfriended animals has 
 many an obstacle to contend with in the difficulties or the 
 delicacies of legislation. But we shall ever deny that it is a 
 theme beneath the dignity of legislation, or that the nobles and 
 the senators of our land stoop to a cause which is degrading, 
 when, in imitation of Heaven's high clemency, they look 
 benignly downward on these humble and helpless sufferers. 
 Ere we can admit this, we must forget the whole economy of 
 our blessed Gospel. We must forget the legislation and the 
 cares of the upper sanctuary in behalf of our fallen species. 
 We must forget that the redemption of our world is suspended 
 on an act of jurisprudence which angels desire to look into, and 
 for effectuating which the earth we tread upon was honoured 
 by the footsteps, not of angel or of archangel, but of God 
 manifest in the flesh. The distance upward between us and 
 that mysterions Being, who let Himself down from heaven's 
 high concave upon our lowly platform, surpasses by infinity the 
 distance downward between us and every thing that breathes. 
 And He bowed Himself thus far for the purpose of an example, as 
 well as for the purpose of an expiation, that every Christian 
 might extend his compassionate regards over the whole of 
 sentient and suffering nature." 
 
 In the same spirit as this noble appeal of Chalmers are the 
 words of a distinguished man of science, Dr. George Wilson. 
 " There is an example as well as a lesson for us in the Saviour's
 
 PLACE OF HUMANITY IN ETHICS. 15 
 
 compassion for men. Inasmuch as we partake with the lower 
 animals of bodies exquisitely sensitive to pain, and often 
 agonised by it, we should be slow to torture creatures who, 
 though not sharers of our joys, or participators in our mental 
 agonies, can equal us in our bodily suffering. We stand by 
 Divine appointment between God and His irresponsible subjects, 
 and are as gods unto them. . . . They have taught us a lesson 
 of obedience to God, and He has taught us a lesson of kindness 
 to them. We shall be worse even than the forgiven debtor, 
 who showed no 'mercy to his fellow, if we wrong servants who 
 have excelled us in faithfulness, or fail in compassion for the 
 dumb creatures of God, which He has committed to our care. 
 
 ' He prayeth best who loveth best 
 
 All things both great and small ; 
 For the dear God who loveth us, 
 He made and loveth all.' " 
 
 A high place in Christian ethics is here given to the duty 
 of humanity to animals, but not too high when we consider 
 that virtues and vices depend on the state of the mind, and not 
 merely on the objects upon which they are exercised. " To do 
 justly and to love mercy " are two of the great and compre- 
 hensive requirements of religion, and the sphere of their 
 obligation is not limited to our dealings with our fellow-men. 
 Man may imagine for himself a scale of guilt founded upon his 
 idea of the relative importance of these objects, but in the 
 eye of the common Father of all there can be no such distinc- 
 tion. " Man looketh to the outward appearance, but the Lord 
 looketh on the heart." It is to the character and the internal 
 disposition that He looketh, whether in denouncing His doom 
 upon the unmerciful, or in announcing His promise to the 
 merciful that they shall obtain mercy. 
 
 It may seem strange that, if this is so clearly an obligation of
 
 16 CLAIMS OF THE LOWER ANIMALS. 
 
 Christian duty, the general recognition of it should have been 
 so tardy. But it is not strange when we remember how slow 
 are the triumphs of Divine love over Imman passions and 
 interests. It is only in recent times that slavery and the slave 
 trade have been regarded by common consent as contrary to the 
 spirit of Christianity ; and many evils are still countenanced 
 among nations nominally Christian. "We need not wonder, 
 then, at the tardy recognition of the claims of humanity to 
 animals as a moral duty. 
 
 The Jewish religion, while adapted to an earlier dispensation 
 and a peculiar people, had the same Divine Author and origin as 
 the Christian religion. Hence the sacred writings of the Old 
 Testament, except where relating to matters national or cere- 
 monial, are equally binding in respect to moral and practical 
 questions with those of the New Testament. In the Old 
 Testament are many statements and precepts on the subject of 
 humanity to animals. Let us briefly consider, first, some special 
 enactments in the Jewish code of laws, and then various other 
 passages in the Bible, which give the highest sanction of religion 
 to the duty we are enforcing. 
 
 In the Mosaic code of laws there were several special precepts 
 by which mercy to animals was enjoined. For instance, Deut. 
 xxii. 6, 7 : " If a bird's nest chance to be before thee in the way 
 in any tree, or on the ground, whether they be young ones, 
 or eggs, and the dam sitting upon the young, or upon the 
 eggs, thou shalt not take the dam with the young : but thou 
 shalt in any wise let the dam go " that is, whether you take the 
 young for food or any other use, in any wise leave the mother. 
 It is enough to lose her brood ; let her have her liberty, and the 
 chance of other young ones in their place. 
 
 In the same group of laws we read : " Thou shalt not see thy 
 brother's ass or his ox fall down by the way, and hide thyself
 
 PRECEPTS OF THE MOSAIC IAW. 17 
 
 from them : thou shalt surety help him to lift them up again " 
 (Deut. xxii. 4). And again : " If thou meet thine enemy's ox 
 or his ass going astray, thou shalt surely bring it back to him 
 again." This is partly to teach goodwill even to an enemy ; 
 but with it is mixed up the duty of compassion for its own 
 sake : " If thou see the ass of him that hateth thee lying under 
 his burden, and wouldest forbear to help him, thou shalt surely 
 help with him ' ' (Exod. xxiii. 4, 5). 
 
 In Deuteronomy xxii. 10, we read : "Thou shalt not plough 
 with an ox and an ass together; " a rule of mercy, teaching that 
 the work should always be adapted to the strength of the 
 animal employed. In Deut. xxv. 4, the precept, " Thou shalt 
 not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn," teaches that 
 animals, when engaged in the service of man, should be treated 
 with indulgence and kindness. The apostle Paul quotes this 
 precept, and shows that God did not appoint it for the sake of 
 oxen only, but that every labourer is worthy of his hire : and 
 thence deduces the obligation of men to exercise justice in pro- 
 perly rewarding those who labour for their benefit, and especi- 
 ally who labour for the good of their souls. This use of the 
 precept, so far from weakening, seems to confirm its obligation 
 in reference to the lower animals. It proves that the same 
 principles of equity are expected to apply to the relations 
 between all God's creatures, and that the rules of justice and 
 mercy are of universal obligation. 
 
 These Divine precepts, taken along with such passages of 
 Scripture as describe God's watchful care over all His creatures, 
 ought to give us higher views of our relations to the animals 
 that serve us or are useful to us, and ought to inspire us with 
 more of that goodwill which is so widely diffused over the 
 creation. So far is the merciful regard of the Creator to the
 
 18 CLAIMS OF THE LOWER ANIMALS. 
 
 lower animals declared, that in the covenant with Noah they are 
 specially mentioned ; and in the institution of the Sabbath 
 they are to share the advantage of the day of rest from toil and 
 labour. " Six days thou shalt do thy work, and on the seventh 
 day thou shalt rest : that thine ox and thine ass may rest, and 
 the son of thy handmaid, and the stranger, may be refreshed" 
 (Exod. xxiii. 12 ; Deut. v. 14). 
 
 Other passages might be cited, as where harmless cattle are 
 mentioned along with innocent children, as being regarded by 
 the Almighty when He averted His judgments from guilty 
 Nineveh. " And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, 
 wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot 
 discern between their right hand and their left hand ; and also 
 much cattle?" (Jonah iv. 11). 
 
 Enough has been said to prove that kindness to animals is 
 a duty enjoined by the precepts of the Bible. And besides these 
 direct precepts, we find some of the most touching representa- 
 tions of the interest God takes in our welfare, and of His love 
 to mankind, given under the figure of the kindness due on our 
 parts to the lower animals. The love of the Saviour of the 
 world is denoted by that of a tender and good shepherd : " He 
 shall feed His flock like a shepherd : He shall gather the lambs 
 with His arm, and carry them in His bosom, and shall gently 
 lead those that are with young " (Isa. xl. 11 ; John x. 11). 
 
 It is true that God has given to man " dominion over the 
 fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the 
 cattle, and over all the earth" (Gen. i. 26; ix. 1-3). But 
 the dominion thus conferred is not absolute. It is limited 
 by the eternal obligations of justice and mercy, even in matters 
 not included in special precepts of the Scriptures. It is also to
 
 LORD ERSKINE'S APPEAL. 19 
 
 be regarded not only as a right but as a trust. On this point 
 we quote some sentences from a remarkable speech by the great 
 Lord Erskine, when he was trying to induce the Government of 
 his day to legislate for the protection of animals from cruelty : 
 " That the dominion of man over the lower world is a moral 
 trust, is a proposition which no man living can deny, without 
 denying the whole foundation of our duties. If in the examina- 
 tion of the qualities, powers, and instincts of animals, we could 
 discover nothing else but their admirable and wonderful con- 
 struction for man's assistance ; if we found no organs in the 
 animals for their own gratification and happiness, no sensibility 
 to pain or pleasure, no grateful sense of kindness, nor suffering 
 from neglect or injury, no senses analogous, though inferior to 
 our own ; if we discovered, in short, nothing but mere animated 
 matter, obviously and exclusively subservient to human pur- 
 poses, it would be difficult to maintain that the dominion over 
 them was a trust : in any other sense at least than to make the 
 best use for ourselves of the property in those which Providence 
 had given us. But it calls for no deep or extended skill in 
 natural history to know that the very reverse of this is the 
 case, and that God is the benevolent and impartial author of all 
 that He has created. For every animal which comes in contact 
 with man, and whose powers and qualities and instincts are 
 obviously adapted to his use, Nature has taken care to provide, 
 and as carefully and bountifully as for man himself, organs and 
 feelings for its own enjoyment and happiness." " The animals 
 are given for our use, but not for our abuse. Their freedom and 
 enjoyments, when they cease to be consistent with our just 
 dominion and enjoyments, can be no part of their natural 
 rights ; but whilst they are consistent, their rights, subservient 
 as they are, ought to be as sacred as our own."
 
 20 CLAIMS OF THE LOWER ANIMALS. 
 
 In the same strain as those eloquent arguments of Lord 
 Erskine are the words of the gentle and genial poet Cowper : 
 
 " The sum is this : if man's convenience, health, 
 Or safety interfere, his rights and claims 
 Are paramount, and must extinguish theirs ; 
 Else they are all, the meanest things that are, 
 As free to live, and to enjoy that life, 
 As God was free to form them at the first, 
 Who in His sovereign wisdom made them all." 
 
 
 
 Other motives of a religious bearing might be urged in behalf 
 of our dumb clients. The fact of their being the creatures of 
 God ought to secure our kind and humane treatment of them. 
 "Ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee ; and the 
 fowls of the air, and they shall tell thee : or speak to the 
 earth, and it shall teach thee : and the fishes of the sea shall 
 declare unto thee. Who knoweth not in all these that the 
 hand of the Lord hath wrought this ? In whose hand is 
 the soul of every living thing" (Job xii. 7-10). God has 
 made the sun, the skies, the air, free to all His creatures ; 
 and man should not wantonly shorten the little day of pleasure, 
 nor interrupt the lowly bliss of those creatures to whom the 
 Creator has given the enjoyment of life. Hear what Paley says 
 in his " Natural Theology," in the chapter on " The Goodness 
 of the Deity " : " It is a happy world after all. The air, the 
 earth, the water, teem with delighted existence. In a spring 
 noon, or a summer evening, on whichever side I turn my eyes, 
 myriads of happy beings crowd on my view. ' The insect youth 
 are on the wing.' Swarms of new-born flies are trying their 
 pinions in the air. Their sportive motions, their wanton mazes, 
 their gratuitous activity, testify their joy, and the exultation 
 which they feel in their newly-discovered faculties. A bee 
 among the flowers in spring is one of the most cheerful objects
 
 GOD'S PROVIDENTIAL CARE. 21 
 
 that can be looked upon so busy, so pleased ; yet it is only a 
 specimen of insect life, with which, by reason of the animal 
 being half domesticated, we happen to be better acquainted 
 than we are with others. The whole insect tribe, it is probable, 
 are equally intent upon their proper employment, and under 
 every variety of constitution gratified, and perhaps equally 
 gratified, by the ofiice which the Author of their nature has 
 assigned to them." 
 
 The fact of God's providential care of the lower animals, their 
 preservation as well as their creation by God, ought to secure 
 their kind and humane treatment. In the beginning of the 
 world, we read of the provision made for them as well as for 
 man. " To every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the 
 air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein 
 there is life, I have given every green herb for meat " (Gen. 
 i. 30). The wants of all living creatures are before the Lord, 
 the preserver of man and of beast (Psa. xxxvi. 6). " The 
 eyes of all wait upon Thee ; and Thou givest them their meat in 
 due season. Thou openest Thine hand, and satisfiest the desire of 
 every living thing" (Psa. cxlv. 15, 16). "He giveth to the 
 beast his food, and to the young ravens which cry " (Psa. 
 cxlvii. 9). " Consider the ravens : for they neither sow nor 
 reap ; which neither have storehouse nor barn ; and God feedeth 
 them" (Luke xii. 24). And again : " Behold the fowls of the 
 air : for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into 
 barns ; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them " (Matt. vi. 26). 
 "These wait all upon Thee ; that Thou mayest give them their 
 meat in due season. That Thou givest them they gather : 
 Thou openest Thine hand, they are filled with good. Thou 
 hidest Thy face, they are troubled : Thou takest away their 
 breath, they die, and return to their dust" (Psa. civ. 27-29).
 
 22 CLAIMS OF THE LOWER ANIMALS. 
 
 This is the language of poetry, but it is also the language of fact, 
 for we are assured that not even a sparrow falls to the ground 
 without our Father, and " not one of them is forgotten before 
 God," in whose hand is the breath of every living thing. It is 
 not by miracle they are sustained, nor is there special providence 
 in the fall of a sparrow ; but God has wonderfully adapted the 
 scenes of nature to the life of His creatures. " He causeth the 
 grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man." 
 " He sendeth the springs into the valleys, which run among the 
 hills. They give drink to every beast of the field : the wild 
 asses quench their thirst. By them shall the fowls of the 
 heaven have their habitation, which sing among the branches." 
 Well may man, as the great high-priest of nature, lift up the 
 song of wonder and of praise : " O Lord, how manifold are Thy 
 works ! in wisdom hast Thou made them all : the earth is full 
 of Thy riches. So is this great and wide sea, wherein are things 
 creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts." " Sing 
 unto the Lord with thanksgiving ; sing praise upon the harp 
 unto our God " (Psa. cxlvii. 7). 
 
 As God provides the sustenance for all living things, so He 
 has implanted instincts in His creatures adapted to their in- 
 finitely varied conditions of life. The most interesting and 
 instructive part of the study of natural history far above the 
 mere describing and classifying to which some naturalists con- 
 fine themselves is the observation of the habits and instincts of 
 living creatures, in the preservation of their life and continu- 
 ance of their species on the earth. Some men of science have 
 seen in these wonderful instincts only the operation of material 
 laws, ascribing life itself to the random play of lifeless atoms. 
 But in a loftier and devouter spirit Addison has thus referred to 
 the subject : " There is not, in my opinion, anything more 
 mysterious in nature than this instinct in animals, which thus
 
 INSTINCT AND REASON. 23 
 
 rises above reason, and falls infinitely short of it. It cannot be 
 accounted for by any properties in matter, and at the same time 
 works in so odd a manner, that one cannot think it the faculty 
 of an intellectual being. For my own part, I look upon it as 
 upon the principle of gravitation in bodies, which is not to be 
 explained by any known qualities inherent in the bodies them- 
 selves, nor from any laws of mechanism ; but, according to the 
 best notions of the greatest philosophers, is an immediate im- 
 pression from the First Mover, and the Divine energy acting in 
 the creatures" ("Spectator," No. 120). 
 
 Very much has been written concerning Instinct as distin- 
 guished from Reason. The distinction and definition will not 
 be found so easy as might at first be thought, at least if we 
 may judge by the great variety in the statements of naturalists 
 and metaphysicians. Dr. Johnson in his Dictionary gives two 
 definitions, the first referring to instinct as existing in man : 
 " Desire or aversion in the mind, without the intervention of 
 reason or deliberation." The second definition is what at 
 present is to the point : " The power of determining the will of 
 brutes." And he quotes, as example of the use of the word, 
 from Pope 
 
 " The philosopher avers 
 
 That Reason guides our deeds, and Instinct theirs : 
 Instinct and Reason how shall we divide ?" 
 
 How, indeed ! But for ordinary purposes we can get suffi- 
 ciently clear division. The most concise definition of instinct 
 we have seen is : " Spontaneous impulse to certain actions, not 
 accompanied by intelligence." Another author says it is " a 
 capacity for performing certain actions which conduce to some 
 useful purpose, but of which purpose the animal is itself 
 ignorant." A third writer has it : "A natural impulse to cer-
 
 24 CLAIMS OF THE LOWEK ANIMALS. 
 
 tain actions, which animals perform without deliberation, and 
 without having any end in view, or knowing why they do it." 
 By Messrs. Kirby and Spence, in their " Entomology, or Elements 
 of the Natural History of Insects," Instincts are said to be 
 " those unknown faculties, implanted in their constitution by the 
 Creator, by which, independent of instruction, observation, or 
 experience, and without a knowledge of the end in view, they 
 are impelled to the performance of certain actions tending to 
 the well-being of the individual and the preservation of the 
 species." 
 
 These latter definitions are correct so far as natural im- 
 pulse and absence of plan are concerned, but it is not so 
 certain that the animal is always unconscious of what it is 
 doing, or ignorant of the object in doing it. A more accurate 
 definition we venture to give : " Instinct is a natural impulse 
 prompting to action, without instruction or experience, for the 
 preservation of the individual or the continuation of the species." 
 This definition includes instinctive actions in man as well as in 
 the lower animals, and does not exclude such knowledge, or 
 motive, or voluntary exertion, as will often be found to accom- 
 pany actions which must still be described as instinctive. In 
 cases, to be presently mentioned, of variation or modification 
 of instinct, it cannot be said that the animal acts without 
 intelligence and will, though, it may be, without experience 
 and instruction. 
 
 Take for example the mode of birds building their nests. A 
 pair of young birds, taken from the dam, and separated from all 
 other birds, will in due season prepare a nest with as much skill 
 as if they had been brought up with birds of the same species, 
 and had practised nest-building for many successive springs. 
 As a general rule, every species of bird has a mode of nidi- 
 fication peculiar to itself, so that a schoolboy would at once
 
 INSTINCT NOT ALWAYS INVOLUNTARY. 25 
 
 pronounce on the sort of nest before him. This is the case 
 among fields and woods and wilds ; but near towns, the nest 
 of a chaffinch, for instance, has not so finished and elegant an 
 appearance, nor is it so beautifully studded with mosses and 
 lichens, as in a more rural district ; and the wren also, near 
 towns is obliged to construct its house with straws and dried 
 grasses, which do not give it that rotundity and compactness, 
 so remarkable in the rural edifice of that little architect. Again, 
 the regular nest of the house-marten is hemispheric, but where 
 a rafter, or a joist, or a cornice may happen to stand in the way, 
 the nest is so contrived as to conform to the obstruction, and 
 becomes flat, or compressed. In these cases there is room for 
 choice of materials and variety of construction, implying a 
 measure of intelligent will, and not blind impulse only. But 
 the work is so far in accordance with the habit of the species as 
 to be rightly called instinctive. 
 
 Instinct cannot therefore be described as an involuntary im- 
 pulse. Under ordinary circumstances it acts under natural law, 
 which produces uniformity of action ; but there are deviations 
 from this uniformity, sometimes, indeed, caused by material con- 
 ditions, but at other times undoubtedly the result of will or volun- 
 tary action modifying natural law. Still, the action is impulsive, 
 or impelling to a defined end, and is carried out without previous 
 experience or direction from other individuals of the species. 
 
 Many remarkable instances of modifications of instinct are 
 described in Kirby and Spence's " Entomology," among the 
 insect tribes. 
 
 There is a beetle, the Geofrupcs rcrnnlis, which rolls up 
 pellets of dung, in each of which it deposits its eggs ; and 
 in places where it meets with cow or horse-dung only, it is 
 constantly under the necessity of having recourse to this process. 
 But in districts where sheep are kept, this beetle wisely saves 
 
 c
 
 26 CLAIMS OF THE LOWER ANIMALS. 
 
 itself the labour, and ingeniously avails itself of the pellet- 
 shaped balls ready made to its hands which the excrement of 
 these animals supplies. 
 
 A caterpillar, described by Bonnet, which, from being con- 
 fined in a box, was unable to obtain a supply of the bark with 
 which its ordinary instinct directs it to make its cocoon, sub- 
 stituted pieces of paper that were given to it, tied them together 
 with silk, and with this improvised material constructed a very 
 passable cocoon. 
 
 Some species of the humble-bees roof their nests with a 
 vault or coping of moss. Huber covered with a bell-glass a 
 nest of one of the common species (Bombns mitzcorum), and 
 the glass being placed on an uneven surface, he stuffed up the 
 interstices with a linen cloth. The bees finding themselves in 
 a situation where no moss was to be had, tore the linen cloth 
 thread from thread, carded it with their feet into a felted mass, 
 and applied it to the same purpose as moss, for which it was 
 nearly as well adapted. On another occasion some humble-bees, 
 confined in an open box on the top of which the cover of a 
 book was laid, tore the cloth off the book-cover, and adapted 
 the fragments for roofing their nest. 
 
 Huber, the most unwearied and successful observer of the 
 life and habits of bees, has recorded many instances of the 
 ingenuity and variety of resource of these insects, in adapting 
 the form and size of their cells to the particular places or 
 circumstances of their work. 
 
 In one case he placed in front of a comb which the bees were 
 constructing a piece of glass. They seemed immediately aware 
 that it would be very difficult to attach it to so slippery a sur- 
 face; and instead of continuing the comb in a straight line, 
 they bent it at a right angle, so as to extend beyond the slip of 
 glass, and ultimately fixed it to an adioining part of the wooi-
 
 MODIFICATIONS OF INSTINCT. 27 
 
 work of the hive which the glass did not cover. This deviation, 
 if the comb had been a mere simple and uniform mass of wax, 
 would have evinced no small ingenuity : but you will bear in 
 mind that a comb consists on each side, or face, of cells, having- 
 between them bottoms in common ; and if you take a comb, and 
 having softened the wax by heat, endeavour to bend it in any 
 part at a right angle, you will then comprehend the difficulties 
 which our little architects had to encounter. The resources of 
 their instinct, however, were adequate to the emergency. They 
 made the cells on the convex side of the bent part of the comb 
 much larger, and those on the concave side much smaller than 
 usual, the former having three or four times the diameter of 
 the latter. But this was not all. As the bottoms of the small 
 and large cells were, as usual, common to both, the cells were 
 not regular prisms ; but the small ones were made consider- 
 ably wider at the bottom than at the top, and conversely in the 
 large ones ! What conception can we form of so wonderful 
 flexibility of instinct? How, as Huber asks, can we compre- 
 hend the mode in which such a crowd of labourers, occupied at 
 the same time on the edge of the comb, could agree to give it 
 the same curvation from one extremity to the other ? or how 
 could they arrange together to construct on one face cells so 
 small, while on the other they imparted to them such enlarged 
 dimensions ? And how can we feel adequate astonishment that 
 they should have the art of making cells of such different sizes 
 correspond ? 
 
 That these adaptations, however varied and ingenious, are to 
 be ascribed to instinct, modified instinct, and not to intelligent 
 action, must be admitted. For the most extensive and exact 
 knowledge would be necessary to the workers for the perform- 
 ance of such labours, if a result of reason and knowledge. 
 Suppose a man to have acquired by long practice the art of
 
 28 CLAIMS OF THE LOWER ANIMALS. 
 
 modelling wax into uniform hexagonal cells, it would take him 
 months of toil to acquire skill to adapt his work to such varia- 
 tions as are frequent among bee architects, even if he were 
 gifted with a clear head and a competent store of geometrical 
 knowledge ; and if destitute of these requisites, it may be safely 
 asserted he would never succeed at all. "How, then," says 
 Mr. Kirby, who quotes Huber's observations, " how can we 
 imagine it possible that these difficult problems can be com- 
 pletely and exactly solved by animals of which some are not 
 two days old, others not a week, and probably none a year ? 
 The conclusion is irresistible it is not Reason but Instinct that 
 is their guide." 
 
 A remarkable form of instinct is that which leads animals 
 to make their way to remote places, without the possibility of 
 aid from sight, or smell, or other senses. In migrating animals 
 and birds, this instinct is common to the whole species ; but 
 there are also many instances on record of strange journeys 
 performed by animals whose usual habits are home-keeping. 
 The late Mr. J. H. Lord, an accomplished naturalist and genial 
 writer, narrated the following instances in the pages of the 
 " Leisure Hour." 
 
 " I once had a favourite spaniel, called Sport. He was lent to 
 a friend, who came to fetch him. Sport was placed in a dog- 
 cart, and driven to my friend's residence, a distance of over 
 twenty miles. The cart was so made that air could freely get 
 in for the dog to breathe, but by no possibility could any part 
 of the road be seen during the journey. On his arrival Sport 
 was tied up with a rope under the manger in the stable. During 
 the night the dog gnawed his rope, made his escape through a 
 broken window, and he was discovered early in the morning 
 succeeding his departure, sitting, weary, hungry, and bedraggled, 
 outside the door of my own residence. Now the question which
 
 ANECDOTES OF INSTINCT. 29 
 
 naturally presents itself is, how did the dog find his way back 
 along a road not one foot of which he had ever seen before ? 
 The remembrance of particular objects noted by the way could 
 not have guided the dog, simply because he had no opportunity 
 afforded him of seeing them. 
 
 " I once, while living in the Far West, rode a horse from my 
 camp across a prairie to an encampment of squatters, a distance 
 of more than twenty miles. A river of some width was crossed 
 on the route, the horse being ferried over in a large boat. The 
 animal had never travelled the road previously, nor had it ever 
 run upon the prairie, and yet during the night it contrived to 
 break its tether line, and in the dark to find its way back to our 
 camp ; and, what is more strange, the horse actually swam the 
 stream it had, during the day, been ferried over in a boat. By 
 what means, it may be asked, did the horse contrive to find its 
 way over a grassy waste never trodden by it previously to a 
 given point so far distant ? There was no path or trail, and in 
 the dark the horse could not, except by smelling, have retraced 
 its own footprints." 
 
 Many similar anecdotes are on record, to which the following 
 authenticated cases may be added. A horse was turned out in 
 some marshes adjoining the Thames. The distance in a straight 
 line from his owner's house was only a few miles, but he had 
 to be sent a long way round to cross the bridge. In less than 
 twenty- four hours he made his appearance at the stable-door 
 dripping wet, having swam the river and taken a straight line 
 home. 
 
 During the life of the celebrated sportsman the late Sir 
 Richard Sutton, a draft of young hounds was sent up to London 
 by waggon, from the kennel near Lincoln, and there put on 
 board a vessel to go abroad. While the ship was dropping 
 down the Thames one of them jumped overboard and swam
 
 30 CLAIMS OF THE LOWER ANIMALS. 
 
 ashore. Some weeks after, it made its appearance at the kennel 
 half-starved, and covered with bites bestowed upon it by its 
 more fortunate fellows. I regret to have to add that it was 
 killed immediately, so many valuable hounds having recently 
 been destroyed in that pack by madness, that the huntsman 
 was afraid to take it in. 
 
 Some years since a dog-fox was run to ground on Hatfield 
 Heath, near Ashford, Kent. When dug out he was found to 
 have some remarkable white spots about him, therefore the Earl 
 of Thanet had him sent to his seat in Westmoreland Appleby 
 Castle a distance of 300 miles, and turned down. A fort- 
 night afterwards the same fox was killed near Hatfield his 
 native place. 
 
 "Not very long ago," says one writer, " I saw a cow bought 
 at a farm auction. About six o'clock in the evening she was 
 sent off home by the purchaser, and was placed iu the yard, a 
 distance of fifteen miles from her former home. At six o'clock 
 the next morning she was found back in her old shed, quietly 
 chewing the cud, and waiting to be milked as usual. 
 
 " I once purchased a brood of ducklings, about a month old, 
 without the hen that hatched them. I took them home and 
 placed them, as I thought, safely in a pig-pound. In the morn- 
 ing I found they were all gone, and I discovered them snugly 
 huddled together at their old quarters, at the other end of the 
 village, in the nest in which they were hatched. A labourer 
 told me he had met them in the street, homeward bound, at 
 four o'clock A.M., as he was going to work. They had not been 
 off the premises where they were bred before." 
 
 There seems no doubt that Providence has bestowed on 
 animals an instinct which we do not possess, and can therefore 
 with difficulty comprehend or explain. By this instinct birds 
 of passage find their way to the remotest regions, and return to
 
 INSTINCT IN MAN. 31 
 
 their old haunts, guided by some power beyond that of sight 
 or other outward senses. 
 
 In a broad general sense we say that man has reason, and 
 brutes have instinct. This does not, however, imply that in- 
 telligence is not the moving power in many of the actions of 
 animals, any more than that instinct is not the moving power 
 in many of the actions of man. 
 
 In the early stages of human existence there is a large pro- 
 portion of instinct, with only a small portion of reason ; as 
 years advance, there is a greater proportion of reason, but still 
 with admixture of instinct, which continues throughout life. 
 All the involuntary actions and functions of the human body 
 are, in a sense, instinctive. Even in regard to some actions 
 which are strictly voluntary, such as walking or swallowing ) 
 these are the results of early instinct, strengthened by exercise 
 or habit. An infant, immediately after birth, swallows the 
 mother's milk, by instinct using the same muscles which after- 
 wards are moved by the will. The early instincts are subjected 
 to a law of the animal economy, according to which motions 
 occurring at the same time, or in immediate succession, become 
 so connected, that when one of them is reproduced the other 
 has a tendency to accompany or to succeed it. We call this the 
 law of association. To this law of association that of habit is 
 nearly allied, the power of which is exercised on the mental as 
 well as the corporeal functions. By these laws many of the 
 actions of man are determined, without direct or conscious exer- 
 cise of the reason or the will. In fact, they may be regarded 
 rather as instinctive than as rational. In man the powers of in- 
 stinct prevail in the early stages of existence. In the imbecile 
 and the insane, these actions of instiuct prevail over those of 
 reason throughout life.
 
 32 CLAIMS OF THE LOWER ANIMALS. 
 
 In comparing the faculties of different classes of animals, we 
 find that the two powers of reason and instinct generally exist 
 in a kind of inverse ratio to each other. The higher the organ- 
 isation, especially of the brain and nervous system, the larger 
 the proportion of intelligence ; the lower the organisation, the 
 larger the proportion of instinct. In no class of living creatures, 
 for instance, are the operations of instinct more varied and more 
 marvellous than in the insect tribes. They have exquisite 
 organs of motion, yet with such organisation of the nervous 
 system that they cannot possess intelligence, and are denied 
 even sensation by some physiologists. The fact of their spon- 
 taneous movements, however, attests the possession of sensation 
 and will, although these are feeble compared with the intense 
 power of their instinctive functions. The arguments for the 
 automatism, or merely mechanical movements, of even the lowest 
 tribes of insects, only come from theorists, and seem absurd to 
 every practical naturalist who studies their life and habits. 
 
 As we advance upward in the scale of animated nature, the 
 admixture of intelligence with instinct is constantly apparent. 
 Every naturalist, every sportsman, and indeed every observer of 
 animal life, can give hosts of illustrations of the intelligence of 
 creatures whose life in the main is at the same time governed 
 by instinct. Let us give a few examples. Archbishop "Whately, 
 in his interesting " Lecture on Instinct," tells of a cat which 
 lived many years in his mother's family, and whose feats of 
 sagacity were witnessed by the narrator's mother, sisters, and 
 himself. " It was known, not merely once or twice, but 
 habitually, to ring the parlour bell whenever it wished the door 
 to be opened. Some alarm was excited on the first occa- 
 sion that it turned bellringer. The family had retired to rest, 
 and in the middle of the night the parlour bell was rung 
 violently. The sleepers were startled from their repose, and
 
 INTELLIGENCE IN ANIMALS. 33 
 
 proceeded downstairs with pokers and tongs to interrupt, as 
 they thought, the predatory movement of some burglar ; but they 
 were agreeably surprised to discover that the bell had been rung 
 by pussy, who frequently repeated the act whenever she wanted 
 to get out of the parlour." " It is quite clear," adds Dr. 
 "Whately, " that if such acts were done by man, they would be 
 regarded as an exercise of reason ; and I do not know why, 
 when performed by brutes, evidently by a similar process, as far 
 as can be judged, they should not bear the same name. To 
 speak of a cat's having an instinct to pull a bell when desirous of 
 going out at the door, or of an elephant's lifting up a cannon 
 and beating down a wall at his driver's command, would be to 
 use words at random." 
 
 A young lamb had become entangled in a brier hedge. Its 
 own struggles, and the efforts of the mother, persevered in for a 
 long time, were unavailing to set it at liberty. Finding at 
 length that additional help must be obtained, the parent set 
 off at a rapid pace across three large fields and through as many 
 hedges, bleating in a most piteous fashion. In the last field 
 were a flock of sheep, to whom she no doubt told her trouble, for 
 she shortly returned, attended by a large ram, who used his 
 powerful horns to some purpose, speedily dragging away by 
 them the encircling briers, and freeing the captive. (" Leisure 
 Hour," 1870, p. 125.) 
 
 The sheep is generally considered inferior in intelligence to 
 most other animals, but the following anecdote, given by the 
 editor of the English edition of Cuvier's "Animal Kingdom," is 
 creditable to its sagacity, as well as to that of the cow, another 
 animal whose intelligence is apt to be underrated. 
 
 " During an afternoon's walk with a friend on a hill near 
 Coventry, we observed several sheep gazing steadfastly in the 
 face of a cow that was grazing. Their fixed attitudes attracted
 
 34 CLAIMS OF THE LOWER ANIMALS. 
 
 our attention, and as we came up the cow suddenly raised her 
 head, and the sheep opened a way for her ; she did not proceed 
 more than a dozen yards before she reached a ewe, which, 
 hitherto unnoticed by us, had fallen over on her back and was 
 unable to recover herself from that perilous situation. The cow 
 placed the tip of her horn close under' the side of the animal, 
 and gave a slight toss, so dexterously managed as to enable the 
 ewe to get instantly on her feet." 
 
 The story of " Greyfriars Bobby " is widely known, but if it 
 is new to only a few of my readers it is worth briefly retelling. 
 A poor labouring man died, and was buried in the old Grey- 
 friars Churchyard, Edinburgh. It was a plain, undistinguished 
 grave, but there, with few intervals of absence, by day and 
 night, the little terrier dog was seen to remain. How it was 
 supported none could tell, but after a time one who resided near 
 the churchyard used to give the poor faithful animal its food. 
 When the dog-tax was imposed, the collector came upon Bobby's 
 new patron for the tax. He explained that he was not the 
 owner of the dog, whose master lay buried in the churchyard. 
 The matter came before the city magistrates on appeal. In- 
 quiries were made, and it was found that Bobby had, with 
 touching fidelity, clung to the memory and to the grave of his 
 master. The Lord Provost and magistrates of Edinburgh 
 obtained for Bobby exemption from the tax, and presented the 
 faithful creature with a collar with a suitable inscription. He 
 continued to live in the churchyard till he died. The story 
 had long before become famous, and the generous, kind-hearted 
 Baroness Burdett Coutts has since erected a monument to 
 Bobby's memory, in the form of a drinking fountain surmounted 
 by a sculptured effigy of the dog. 
 
 Very many touching stories have been recorded of these crea- 
 tures ; of their grief at the loss of those they have loved, and
 
 FIDELITY IN ANIMALS. 35 
 
 the great difficulty of separating them from the cold re- 
 mains ; and how, when these are hid from their sight, they 
 will, for days, months, even years, constitute themselves the 
 unwearying guardians of the mound of earth which marks the 
 spot. The circumstance which ocasioned the composition of 
 Scott's beautiful poem, " Helvellyn," is well known. An 
 amiable and highly-talented young gentleman, who was in the 
 habit of taking long rambles through the counties of Cumber- 
 land and Westmoreland, attended only by a favourite terrier, 
 perished by losing his way, in the spring of 1805, on the above- 
 mentioned mountain. His body was found three months after- 
 wards, still watched over by the faithful companion of his solitary 
 excursions. The poetry of Sir Walter is not so much in fashion 
 as it used to be, and as it is possible that the lines may be new 
 to some of our younger readers, we venture to quote two out of 
 the five musical stanzas which compose the poem : 
 
 " Dark green was that spot, 'mid the brown mountain heather, 
 Where the Pilgrim of Nature lay stretched in decay, 
 
 Like the corpse of an outcast abandoned to weather, 
 Till the mountain-winds wasted the tenantless clay. 
 
 Nor yet quite deserted, though lonely extended, 
 
 For faithful in death, his mute favourite attended, 
 
 The much-loved remains of his master defended, 
 And chased the hill-fox and the raven away. 
 
 How long didst thou think that his silence was slumber ? 
 
 When the wind waved his garment, how oft didst thou start ? 
 How many long days and long weeks didst thou number, 
 
 Ere he faded before thee, the friend of thy heart ? 
 And, oh, was it meet that no requiem read o'er him 
 No mother to weep, and no friend to deplore him, 
 And thou, little guardian, alone stretched before him, 
 
 Unhonoured the Pilgrim from life should depart ?" 
 
 Every one who has travelled much in Scotland, more especially 
 in the Highland districts, must have remarked the large attend-
 
 36 CLAIMS OF THE LOWER ANIMALS. 
 
 ance of shepherds' dogs at church on Sundays. This peculiarity 
 is very interesting to English tourists, one of whom states that 
 he was told that many of the dogs were more regular attendants 
 than their masters. This gentleman mentions that, in one 
 parish, the animals, perhaps demoralised by a " black sheep " 
 among their number, became so quarrelsome and unmannerly 
 in their behaviour, that the minister requested all who had been 
 in the habit of bringing their dogs to confine them to the 
 house before leaving for church. This plan answered exceed- 
 ingly well for the first Sunday, but, for the future, not a single 
 shepherd or farmer could find his dog on a Sunday morning. 
 They had no notion of being deprived of their accustomed 
 liberty, and, well knowing the hour of service, set off to church 
 without their masters. An attempt was then made to compro- 
 mise matters, by erecting a large kennel close to the church, 
 where the dogs were imprisoned during public worship, but 
 they kept up such a fearful howling, that the congregation was 
 seriously disturbed, and there was no help for it but to restore 
 them to their former rights and privileges. 
 
 What more interesting example of a process very like reason- 
 ing, as well as an evident desire to please his master, could be met 
 with, than that which Cowper records in his beautiful little 
 poem, entitled " The Dog and the Water Lily." To attempt to 
 render it into commonplace prose would spoil it. Some of my 
 readers may not be sorry to have the incident recalled in the 
 poet's own words : 
 
 " It was the time when Ouse displayed 
 
 His lilies newly blown ; 
 Their beauties I intent surveyed, 
 And one I wished my own. 
 
 With cane extended far, I sought 
 
 To steer it close to land, 
 And still the prize, though nearly caught, 
 
 Escaped my eager hand.
 
 AFFECTION IN ANIMALS. 37 
 
 Beau marked my unsuccessful pains 
 
 With fixed considerate face, 
 And puzzling set his puppy brains 
 
 To comprehend the case ; 
 
 But with a chirrup clear and strong, 
 
 Dispersing all his dream, 
 I thence withdrew, and followed long 
 
 The windings of the stream. 
 
 My ramble ended, I returned ; 
 
 Beau, trotting far before, 
 The floating wreath again discerned, 
 
 And plunging, left the shore. 
 
 I saw him, with that lily cropped, 
 
 Impatient swim to meet 
 My quick approach, and soon he dropped 
 
 The treasure at my feet." 
 
 Sir Edwin Landseer's pictures tell how much he admired and 
 loved those wisest and most useful of all dogs, the collies. 
 Nor does he confine his loving portraiture to intellectual traits 
 only. What a depth of feeling and tenderness of affection we 
 see in that picture of " The Shepherd's Chief Mourner ! " In 
 none of his paintings did the great artist exaggerate the 
 character of the animals he loved to draw, certainly not in the 
 case of the shepherd dogs. 
 
 All books of natural history abound in anecdotes of the 
 docility and sagacity of these dogs, but they have had no more 
 genial and discriminating historian than James Hogg, "the 
 Ettrick Shepherd." 
 
 He declares that dogs know what is said on subjects in which 
 they feel interested. A farmer had a dog that for years met 
 him always at the foot of his farm, about a mile and a half 
 from his house, on his way home. If he was half a day away, 
 a week, or a fortnight, it was all the same ; she met him at 
 that spot ; and there never was an instance seen of hor going
 
 38 CLAIMS OF TKE LOWER ANIMALS. 
 
 to wait his arrival there on a wrong day. She could only know 
 of his coming home by hearing it mentioned in the family. 
 
 The same writer speaks of a clever sheep-dog, named Hector, 
 which had a similar tact in picking up what was said. One 
 day he observed to his mother, " I am going to-morrow to 
 Bowerhope for a fortnight ; but I will not take Hector with 
 me, for he is constantly quarrelling with the rest of the dogs." 
 Hector, who was present, and overheard the conversation, was 
 missing next morning, and when Hogg reached Bowerhope, 
 there was Hector sitting on a knoll, waiting his arrival. He 
 had swum across a flooded river to reach the spot. 
 
 " My dog Sirrah," says he, " was, beyond all comparison, the 
 best dog I ever saw : he was of a surly and unsocial temper, 
 disdaining all flattery, he refused to be caressed ; but his 
 attention to my commands and interests will never again, 
 perhaps, be equalled by any of the canine race. When I 
 first saw him, a drover was leading him in a rope ; he was 
 both lean and hungry, and far from being a beautiful animal, 
 for he was almost all black, and had a grim face, striped with 
 dark brown. The man had bought him of a boy, somewhere 
 on the Border, for three shillings, and had fed him very ill on 
 his journey. I thought I discovered a sort of sullen intelligence 
 in his countenance, notwithstanding his dejected and forlorn 
 appearance ; I gave the drover a guinea for him, and I believe 
 there never was a guinea so well laid out ; at least, I am satis- 
 fied I never laid out one to so good a purpose. He was scarcely 
 a year old, and knew so little of herding, that he had never 
 turned a sheep in his life ; but as soon as he discovered that it 
 was his duty to do so, and that it obliged me, I can never 
 forget with what anxiety and eagerness he learned his 
 different evolutions. He would try every way deliberately, 
 till he found cn:t what I wanted him to do, and, when I once
 
 THE ETTRICK SHEPHERD'S DOGS. 39 
 
 made him understand a direction, he never forgot or mistook it 
 again. Well as I knew him, he often astonished me ; for, when 
 hard-pressed in accomplishing the task that he was put to, he 
 had expedients of the moment that bespoke a great share of the 
 reasoning faculty." 
 
 Among other remarkable exploits of Sirrah, as illustrative 
 of sagacity, Mr. Hogg relates that, upon one occasion, about 
 seven hundred lambs, which were under his care at weaning 
 time, broke up at midnight, and scampered off, in three 
 divisions, across the neighbouring hills, in spite of all that he 
 and an assistant could do to keep them together. The night 
 was so dark that he could not see Sirrah ; but the faithful 
 animal heard his master lament their absence in words which, 
 of all others, were sure to set him most on the alert ; and 
 without more ado, he silently set off in quest of the recreant 
 flock. Meanwhile the shepherd and his companion did not 
 fail to do all in their power to recover their lost charge ; they 
 spent the whole night in scouring the hills for miles round, but 
 of neither the lambs nor Sirrah could they obtain the slightest 
 trace. It was the most extraordinary circumstance that had 
 ever occurred in the annals of pastoral life. They had nothing 
 for it, day having dawned, but to return to their master, and 
 inform him that they had lost his whole flock of lambs, and 
 knew not what was become of one of them. " On our way 
 home, however," says Mr. Hogg, " we discovered a lot of lambs 
 at the bottom of a deep ravine called the Flesh Cleuch, and the 
 indefatigable Sirrah standing in front of them looking round 
 for some relief, but still true to his charge. The sun was then 
 up, and when we first came in view, we concluded that it was 
 one of the divisions which Sirrah had been unable to manage 
 until he came to that commanding situation. But what was 
 our astonishment when we discovered that not one lamb of the
 
 40 CLAIMS OF THE LOWER ANIMALS. 
 
 whole flock was wanting ! How he had got all the divisions 
 collected in the dark is beyond my comprehension. The charge 
 was left entirely to himself from midnight until the rising sun ; 
 and if all the shepherds in the forest had been there to have 
 assisted him, thej 7 could not have effected it with greater 
 propriety. All that I can further say is, that I never felt so 
 grateful to any creature under the sun as I did to my honest 
 Sirrah that morning." 
 
 " It is a curious fact in the history of these animals that the 
 most useless of the breed have often the greatest degree of 
 sagacity in trifling and useless matters. An exceedingly good 
 sheep-dog attends to nothing else but that particular branch of 
 business to which he is bred. His whole capacity is exerted 
 and exhausted on it, and he is of little avail in miscellaneous 
 matters ; whereas a very indifferent cur, bred about the house, 
 and accustomed to assist in everything, will often put the more 
 noble breed to disgrace in those paltry services. If one calls 
 out, for instance, that the cows are in the corn, or the hens in 
 the garden, the house collie needs no other hint, but runs and 
 turns them out. The shepherd's dog knows not what is astir ; 
 and, if he is called out in a hurry for such work, all that he 
 will do is to break to the hill, and rear himself up on end to 
 see if no sheep are running away. A bred sheep-dog, if 
 coming hungry from the hills, and getting into a milk-house, 
 would most likely think of nothing else than filling his belly 
 with the cream. Not so his uninitiated brother ; he is bred at 
 home to far higher principles of honour. I have known such 
 lie night and day among from ten to twenty pails full of milk, 
 and never once break the cream of one of them with the tip of 
 his tongue, nor would he suffer cat, rat, or any other creature 
 to touch it. This latter sort, too, are far more acute at taking 
 up what is said in a family."
 
 MEMORY OP ANIMALS. 41 
 
 A number of elephants on a march in India came on the scent 
 of a tiger. One of them was seized with a panic and ran off into 
 the woods, the driver saving himself by clinging to the branch 
 of a tree and letting himself down. All attempts to recover the 
 animal were fruitless, and the party proceeded on their way, 
 giving up all idea of seeing him again. Amongst a herd of wild 
 elephants entrapped eighteen months afterwards was found the 
 runaway, who at first was as uproarious and unmanageable as 
 the rest ; but on an old hunter who knew him well riding up to 
 him on a tame elephant, pulling him by the ear, and ordering 
 him to lie down, he immediately obeyed the familiar word of 
 command and became perfectly tractable. The writer who 
 records this instance of memory also mentions a female elephant 
 which escaped from her owner and was at large for fourteen years. 
 On being recaptured she remembered her former driver, and 
 instantly lay down at his order. 
 
 Locke adduces the learning of tunes as a proof that birds are 
 gifted with memory. " It cannot," he says, " with any appear- 
 anceof reason be supposed much less proved thatbirds,without 
 sense and memory, can approach their notes nearer and nearer by 
 degrees to a tune played yesterday, which, if they have no idta 
 of it in their memory, is nowhere, nor can be a pattern for them 
 to imitate, or which any repeated essays can bring them nearer 
 to. Since there is no reason why the sound of a pipe should 
 leave traces in their brains, which not at first, but by their after 
 endeavours, should produce the like sounds ; and why the 
 sounds they make themselves should not make traces which they 
 should follow as well as those of the pipe, is impossible tj 
 conceive." 
 
 There is no question that many animals understand the 
 measurement of time. It is a well-known fact that, on lands 
 where the crows are habitually shot at, the birds, instead of 
 
 D
 
 42 CLAIMS OF THE LOWER ANIMALS. 
 
 keeping at a respectful distance, as on the rest of the week, come 
 close up to the farmhouses on Sundays, having somehow found 
 out that the guns are then shelved. 
 
 Mr. Bell gives the following instance as having fallen under 
 his own knowledge. "A fine Newfoundland dog, which was 
 kept at an inn in Dorsetshire, was accustomed every morning, 
 as the clock struck eight, to take in his mouth a basket placed 
 for the purpose, and containing a few pence, and to carry it 
 across the street to a baker, who took out the money, and 
 replaced it by a certain number of rolls. With these Neptune 
 hastened back to the kitchen, and safely deposited his trust ; 
 but what was well worthy of remark, he never attempted 
 to take the basket on Sunday mornings." 
 
 "We cannot just now call to mind where we met, long ago, 
 with a very amusing example of memory in a horse the charger 
 of the commanding officer of an Indian regiment. He was an 
 exceedingly large and heavy man, and the horse having a dis- 
 like to carrying such a burden, acquired the habit of lying 
 down on the ground whenever the colonel prepared to mount. 
 This, as may be supposed, annoyed him, and, to avoid the 
 ridicule of the soldiers, he parted with the animal, and procured 
 another not so fastidious as to a few stone more or less. We 
 believe it was a year or two certainly some considerable time 
 after that the colonel, visiting another station, was invited to 
 review the troops there, and a horse was placed at his service, 
 which, on his attempting to mount, immediately lay down in 
 full view of the assembled regiment. It turned out to be the 
 identical dismissed charger, who had at once recognised his 
 former objectionable owner. 
 
 In our school-days, says a writer in the "Leisure Hour," we 
 made acquaintance with a Newfoundland dog, whose knowledge 
 of the value of money and careful provision for his future wants,
 
 A KNOWING DOG. 43 
 
 were familiar to a large circle of admirers and patrons. He 
 belonged to a clothier* and the entrance to his master's place of 
 business was furnished with a couple of doors, some six or eight 
 feet distant from each other, the outer one always being open in 
 the daytime, A large mat between the two was his constant 
 post ; he rarely, if ever, was absent from it except for a few 
 minutes at a time, when he went to supply himself with pro- 
 visions at a baker's shop a few doors off, at the corner of the 
 street. Many were the halfpence saved from marbles, barley- 
 sugar, toffy, and even from our daily allowance for lunch, which 
 we bestowed upon the great, sagacious-looking creature, for the 
 pleasure of seeing him walk to the baker's and lay out his 
 money in a biscuit. Sometimes we were disappointed of our 
 amusement, for if not at the moment hungry he would take 
 the coin and hide it under his mat, where, according to school- 
 boy report, he had a fabulous amount (for a dog) of coppers, 
 and from which he abstracted a penny or a halfpenny at a 
 time, according to the state of his appetite. He knew perfectly 
 well the difference between the coins, and their relative value, 
 and that he was entitled to receive two biscuits for the larger 
 sum, and only one for the halfpenny. We have given him a 
 penny, and seen him enter the shop and permit the attendant 
 damsel to take it out of his mouth, but instead of accepting the 
 two biscuits offered him he stood still, looking gravely at her, 
 as if something were wrong. This behaviour was intended to 
 signify that he only wanted a single biscuit on that occasion, 
 and wished for the change out of his penny. Now and then he 
 took a fancy for a French roll by way of variety ; at such times 
 he would " make no sign," and preserve a fixed impenetra- 
 bility of countenance on the presentation, first, of the couple of 
 biscuits, and then of a biscuit and a halfpenny ; then his desire 
 was understood. The people of the shop were, as may be sup-
 
 44 CLAIMS OF THE LOWER ANIMALS. 
 
 posed, accustomed to his ways, and able to interpret his mute 
 expression, and as anxious to please him as if he had been a 
 "regular customer" of the human species. After leaving 
 school, I was told by more than one informant worthy of credit, 
 that if you gave him a sixpence and accompanied him to the 
 shop, he would receive the change, and then allow you to take 
 it out of his mouth, satisfied with his two biscuits, and 
 apparently quite conscious that so large a sum was never 
 intended to be given him at one time. We never knew what 
 became of the balance of his day's receipts at bed-time 
 whether his owner took care of it for him, and laid it out in 
 new collars and mats as the old ones became worse for wear, or 
 whether he slept upon it and guarded it. It was almost 
 impossible that, unless gifted with an uncommonly elastic 
 appetite, and a strict vegetarian to boot, his expenditure could 
 have equalled his income. Poor old fellow ! he was not a hand- 
 some specimen of his race, but " handsome is that handsome 
 does," says the old proverb ; and his intelligence and amiability 
 made him a general favourite with the habitues of the well- 
 frequented thoroughfare. He died long ago, and was properly 
 honoured by being stuffed and preserved. How he would have 
 been perplexed, if he had survived to the days of the bronze 
 coinage ; clever as he was, it would have been some little time, 
 we suspect, before he learned to distinguish between the old 
 halfpenny and the new penny, so nearly of a size. 
 
 Many anecdotes have been recorded about little dogs, after 
 being worried by bigger dogs, returning with a more powerful 
 friend or companion, and taking delight in seeing the bully 
 well thrashed. 
 
 The following deliberate plan of retaliation, formed and 
 carried out by a dog belonging to himself, is related by one 
 YY'io was a witness of the whole proceeding. The dog hud been
 
 CONVERSATION AMONG ANIMALS. 45 
 
 Assaulted and bitten by another much more powerful than him- 
 self, and thinking that, in such unequal odds, " discretion " was 
 " the better part of valour," he took to his heels and ran home. 
 For several days afterwards he was noticed to put himself on 
 half rations, and lay by the remainder of his food. At the 
 expiry of this period he sallied out, and in a short time 
 returned with a few of his friends, before whom he set his 
 store of provisions, and begged them to make a good dinner. 
 This being despatched, the guests took their leave, along with 
 their entertainer, and followed by the dog's master, whose 
 curiosity was excited. He watched their progress for a con- 
 siderable distance, when a large dog marked out by the leader 
 to his companions as the offender was furiously attacked by 
 them all, and well worried before he could make his escape. 
 The self-denial persevered in by this dog with a view to his 
 revenge, and his knowledge of the efficacy of a bribe, are very 
 remarkable ; and he must have explained to his friends the 
 service expected from them in return for their dinner. 
 
 Examples of the intercommunication of ideas between animals 
 of different races have, it is believed, been very rarely recorded. 
 The subjoined one is from an eye-witness. An old mare, 
 relieved from hard work in consequence of the infirmities of 
 declining years, was turned into a field in company with a cow 
 and several heifers. The pasturage in this field being of very 
 indifferent quality compared with the rich crop of grass and 
 clover in the one adjoining, longing eyes were cast by the 
 animals on the tempting food from which they were debarred, 
 and many attempts made to break through the intervening 
 fence, which at some points was not in the best repair. One 
 day the mare was observed to make a regular tour of inspection 
 round the enclosure, evidently, as the sequel shows, to discover 
 the most favourable place for escape. Having ascertained this
 
 4"6 CLAIMS OF THE LOWER ANIMALS. 
 
 to her satisfaction, she returned to her companions, and requested 
 the cow's attention by tapping her gently on the shoulder, first 
 with her hoof, and then with the head. The cow then followed 
 her conductor to the invalided part of the fence, and the pair 
 having attentively surveyed it together, went back for the 
 heifers, after which, the old mare setting the example, the rest 
 followed her over the gap, and found themselves (literally) " in 
 clover." It would not be difficult to translate the quadruped 
 ideas and language here into our own tongue. First, we may 
 suppose the reflection of the old lady to be something like this : 
 " The vegetation in that field looks particularly rich and good ; 
 it makes one's mouth water. I'll just go round and see if 
 there's no way of getting in." Then,, having discovered the 
 suitable spot no selfish desire to leap the fence unobserved, 
 and feast, like Jack Homer, all in a corner by herself, but 
 " I'll go and tell the cow, and bring her to look at the place." 
 This done, the two consult together, and agree that " it will do 
 very nicely ; but we mustn't leave these poor young things in 
 the lurch ; they must share in the feast ; let us go back for 
 them." If these were not exactly the reasoning processes that 
 took place, the initiatory movements and final result lead us to 
 conclude that they must have been very similar. 
 
 A very interesting anecdote is related by Frederic Cuvier, 
 showing not only great power of memory, but also strong 
 attachment in an animal generally supposed to be destitute of 
 all good qualities the wolf. A gentleman had trained up one 
 from infancy till he was as tractable as a dog, would follow him 
 about whenever allowed, and become quite low-spirited when 
 he was absent. Being compelled to leave home, his master 
 made him over to the Menagerie du Hoi, where he at first 
 drooped and refused to eat, but gradually became more recon- 
 ciled to the situation. After the lapse of a year and a half his
 
 SAGACITY OF ANIMALS. 47 
 
 master returned home and paid him a visit. The wolf knew 
 his voice the moment he spoke, and flew to him with every 
 demonstration of delight and affection, planting his fore-feet on 
 his shoulders and licking his face. The same scene occurred 
 after a second separation of three years' duration, the wolf, as 
 before, at once recognising his master's voice, and bounding 
 towards him as soon as set at liberty by the keeper. A final 
 parting followed, and from that time the faithful creature never 
 appeared to regain his former spirits and equable temper, occa- 
 sionally indeed betraying ominous signs of the ferocity inherent 
 in his race. 
 
 Many stories have been told of Sir Edwin Landseer's fond- 
 ness for dogs, and the attachment shown by his various pets. 
 Tiney, a little white terrier, was the latest companion of 
 the painter. A brief biography, accompanying a portrait of 
 Tiney, in the "Animal World," says that he readily learned 
 his master's will, and equally understood his fun. The painter 
 and his brother and sisters found no difficulty in teaching him 
 many tricks. He regularly fetched the morning newspaper 
 from the kitchen to his master's bed, and found a daily re- 
 ward in the caresses of his benefactor. He as punctually 
 carried up his patron's boots, making two journeys in doing 
 such duty. Dogs reason, we have often said ; and certainly 
 Tiney did one morning, when he thought that it would save 
 himself a second journey if he could take up the two boots 
 at one time. Consequently he placed the boots together in a 
 favourable position to enable him to grasp both with his mouth, 
 and having gripped them he started off with apparent success 
 and glee. His enthusiasm was, however, checked on the way 
 by many impediments, and principally by the steps of the 
 staircase. Though it occupied much more of his strength and 
 time to accomplish the task he had set himself to do than he
 
 4(5 CLAIMS OF THE LOWER ANIMALS. 
 
 had expected, Tiney's energy never flagged until he placed 
 both boots together before his master, when he rested, apparently 
 much exhausted, but really perhaps reflecting on his own folly ; 
 for never afterwards did any one see him attempt to carry more 
 than one boot at a time. Tiney was taught to ask for bis- 
 cuits ; and it is noteworthy that when he begged of Mr. Charles 
 Landseer (who suffers from deafness), he invariably barked in 
 a much louder note than when addressing any other member 
 of the family a habit which experience and a love of biscuits, 
 we need hardly explain, had taught him to be mindful of. 
 
 During Landseer's four-years' illness Tiney never left his 
 side. In the garden, on very fine days, the faithful dog would 
 sit coiled up for hours at his master's feet ; and shortly before 
 his end, Landseer, embracing his pet, exclaimed, " My dear little 
 white dog ; nobody can love me half as much as thou dost." 
 
 Anecdotes of elephantine intelligence are numerous, but most 
 of them too well known to repeat here. In fact, all animals that 
 come under the observation of man supply illustrations of what 
 we may call moral as well as mental qualities that are truly 
 surprising. The difficulty is not to find but to select such 
 illustrations. But we have quoted as many as our space will 
 permit. 
 
 A reviewer in the " Times," having noticed several books on 
 animal sagacity, said : " If animals were only as sagacious in 
 real life as they are in books, what a wonderful world it would 
 be ! No doubt the facts contained in many of even the 
 most wonderful of these tales really happened exactly as they 
 are described ; it is the inferences from these facts which so 
 often make us shake the head ! " 
 
 Well, we are not telling these stories here to illustrate the 
 disputed question of instinct and reason, nor to encourage 
 any morbid affection towards the lower animals. Because
 
 HAVE ANIMALS A FUTURE EXISTENCE ? 49 
 
 some animals are intelligent, docile, and affectionate, it does 
 not follow that all animals are to be praised, or any of them 
 to be petted. There are very bad and disagreeable animals, 
 as there are very bad and disagreeable people, but we have 
 no right to treat them with cruelty. Where animals do not 
 interfere with man's rights and convenience, they have a 
 claim to humane treatment. If the Creator has given to them 
 such wonderful qualities and capacities, man should not injure 
 wantonly God's creatures. This is an inference at which no 
 one need shake the head. And another inference from such, 
 stories is the very practical one, that we may get good example 
 sometimes from the lower animals. We may learn from them 
 
 " Many a good 
 
 And useful quality, and virtue too, 
 Barely exemplified among ourselves ; 
 Attachment never to be weaned or changed 
 By any change of fortune, proof alike 
 Against unkindness, absence, or neglect : 
 Fidelity, that neither bribe nor threat 
 Can move or warp ; and gratitude for small 
 And trivial favours, lasting as the life, 
 And glistening even in the dying eye." C)wper. 
 
 Bishop Butler, in the opening chapter of his "Analogy," "On 
 a Future Life," gives various reasons against concluding that the 
 dissolution of the body must be followed by the destruction of 
 the living agent. " But," he adds, " it is said these observa- 
 tions are equally applicable to brutes ; and it is thought an 
 insuperable difficulty that they should be immortal, and by 
 consequence capable of everlasting happiness." This objection 
 Bishop Butler calls both invidious and weak, for immortality 
 would not imply that they must arrive at great attainments, 
 and become rational and moral agents ; " even this would be 
 no difficulty, since we know not what latent powers and
 
 50 CLAIMS OP THE LOWER ANIMALS. 
 
 capacities they may be endued with." But the economy of the 
 universe might require the existence of living creatures without 
 any capacities of this kind. And all difficulties as to the 
 manner how they are to be disposed of are so apparently and 
 wholly founded in our ignorance, that it is wonderful they 
 should be insisted upon by any but such as are weak enough to 
 think they are acquainted with the whole system of things. 
 
 So great a thinker as Bishop Butler did not consider it 
 irrational to conceive the continuance of the life of the lower 
 animals with their present capacities. However this may be, 
 the motives to humanity are equally strong. If, as some wise 
 and good men have supposed, there may be a place for lower 
 creatures than man in a future world, we should feel the 
 responsibility of our relation to them now all the greater. Or, 
 if we regard them only as a passing part of the present system 
 of things, then, in knowing that death is the end of their little 
 existence, we have the strongest motive to let them enjoy their 
 brief life, and cruelty appears the greater injustice.
 
 51 
 
 II. 
 
 VARIOUS FORMS OF NEEDLESS SUFFERING 
 INFLICTED BY MAN. 
 
 t~ MUST now pass on to a less pleasant part of my subject, in 
 pointing out the chief ways in which cruelty to animals is 
 shown. Some of these are obvious enough. No one can pass 
 along our streets without witnessing painful scenes. In places 
 less open to public view, atrocities are perpetrated revolting to 
 humanity and disgraceful to a Christian country. In these 
 dark places, sometimes the lust of gain is the motive, some- 
 times the love of amusement, or " sport." Besides these classes 
 of wanton and wicked cruelty, many are the ways in which 
 helpless animals are exposed to thoughtless and unnecessary 
 pain and injury. It would be impossible, within a short space, 
 to enumerate all the forms of this evil ; it is sufficient to 
 mention some of the more common occasions of suffering and 
 cruelty. 
 
 To speak of such things in detail would only distress readers 
 with sensitive minds. At the same time, in order to expose and 
 prevent such wrong-doing, people's minds must be distressed. 
 Those who feel the most unselfishly and keenly for suffering are 
 always distressed, and will continue to be, so long as those who 
 do nothing to lessen the suffering have their feelings too much 
 considered. Plain speaking and decisive action are needed in 
 such a matter.
 
 52 FORMS OF NEEDLESS SUFFERING. 
 
 We begin with the various kinds of needless suffering 
 inflicted upon animals used for the food of man ; and we may 
 include clothing and other necessary purposes. 
 
 Strange scruples have been raised not merely against the use 
 of animal food, but against taking away the life of animals for 
 any need of man. Not in superstitious India only, but in this 
 country, there are Vegetarians, and other persons, who object 
 to the use of animal food, not on the ground of health only, 
 but as involving a power to which man has no right. To such 
 statements we have only to oppose the clear permission of the 
 Divine Author of life : " Into your hand they are delivered ; 
 every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you : even as 
 the green herb have I given you all things." Subsequent 
 prohibitions, and the division into clean and unclean animals, 
 had reference simply to ceremonial or sanitary points, and did 
 not touch the divinely permitted right to take life for man's 
 use. But this unqualified permission can never give sanction 
 to the infliction of unnecessary pain, and far less of any form of 
 lingering or cruel death. The killing of animals, whether for 
 food, or clothing, or any other purpose, should be done as 
 quickly and compassionately as the disagreeable office will 
 permit. But is it so ? Let the reader judge from a few facts. 
 From the field and the farm, until they are killed for the table, 
 and in the act of killing, most of the animals used for our food 
 are subject to much needless and therefore cruel suffering. 
 
 In the transit of cattle by trains there has of late years been 
 considerable improvement, the trucks being larger and more 
 convenient than formerly, and on some lines special provision 
 being made for giving them water in a long journey. But still 
 there is too much cruelty, as any one may witness who has 
 happened to be at a station on the arrival or departure of a 
 cattle train. A traveller described in the " Times " what he saw
 
 EAILWAY TRANSIT OF CATTLE. 53 
 
 at Ely, and it is only a sample of the sufferings to which cattle 
 in transit are subjected. " My attention was attracted to the up 
 passenger platform, alongside of which was a cattle train, by a 
 succession of oaths, exclamations, and sounds as of blows of 
 sticks rapidly delivered. On crossing the line to see what all 
 this meant, I found an unfortunate ox stretched on its belly 
 across the lowered door or gangway of one of the trucks. The 
 poor brute lay panting, utterly exhausted, with his forelegs 
 resting on the floor of the truck, his hind legs stretched out 
 touching the platform. Half a dozen drovers surrounded the 
 animal, intent on overcoming his exhaustion, and compelling 
 him to get on his legs. The method which they adopted was 
 this : two of the fellows dragged him by the horns, another 
 twisted his tail, whilst one at each side belaboured his back and 
 sides with rapidly falling blows of cudgels, only intermitted for 
 the moment while the cudgels were used as goads. There lay 
 the helpless brute, every now and then making a vain effort to 
 rise, until, after quite fifteen minutes' torture, he was got upon 
 his legs and pushed in among the other animals in the truck, 
 where it was presumed that close packing would prevent his falling 
 on the floor of the van and being trampled to death. On inquiry 
 I learned that these cattle came from Ireland. They generally 
 arrive in Dublin from various parts of the country, and are imme- 
 diately shipped for Liverpool, where they are trucked for various 
 English markets, in this instance for Norwich. Fatigued by 
 the journey in Ireland, knocked about and sickened in crossing 
 the Channel, tired by travelling for many hours on English 
 lines, often without food or water, one or more of the creatures 
 frequently sink in the truck exhausted, and are trampled to 
 death by the other animals. To meet this difficulty was the 
 object of the proceedings I witnessed. The exhausted prostrate 
 beast was dragged half out of the truck and tortured until he
 
 54 FORMS OF NEEDLESS SUFFERING. 
 
 was made to stand up again and resume his place among his 
 fellow-travellers. This process, I was told, goes on in truck 
 load after truck load, and week after week." 
 
 In the shipment and sea transport of cattle, sheep, and other 
 live animals, there is often much unnecessary cruelty. Even 
 in the shorter passages by the Channel steamers this is true, but 
 in the traffic from the Continent, which is every year assuming 
 greater dimensions, the horrors are like those we used to read 
 of in the holds of the slave-trade ships. A well-known writer, 
 a man as kind as he is brave, John MacGregor (" Rob Roy," in 
 his " Canoe Cruise on the Baltic "), gives a painfully graphic 
 account of " the horrors of the middle passage," in the transport 
 of cattle from Northern Europe across the German Ocean to our 
 ports. " Our captain, and indeed the crew and the drovers," 
 says Mr. MacGregor, "did not appear to be heartless in the 
 matter. It is the whole system and plan of shipping cattle 
 which must be amended. To put suffering dying bullocks in 
 the same steamer with passengers is utterly a mistake. The 
 vessel cannot be used for both purposes without being unfit for 
 either, since the two are quite incompatible. 
 
 " If a poor bullock becomes sea-sick at all, he speedily dies. If 
 he is even weaker than his unhappy companions, and lies down, 
 after two days and nights of balancing on sloppy, slippery 
 boards, he is trampled under the others' hoofs, and squeezed by 
 their huge bodies, and suffocated by the pressure and foulness. 
 
 " Through the livelong night, while we Christians on board 
 are sleeping in our berths, these horrid scenes are enacted, and 
 no one to see them. 
 
 " Morning comes, and the dead must be taken from the living. 
 A great boom is rigged up, and as we lean over the rail to look on, 
 there is a chain let down, and the steam- winch winds and winds 
 it tight, and straining with some strong weight below, far, far
 
 SEA TRANSIT OF CATTLE. 55 
 
 down in the lowest of the three tiers of ' filet de bocuf/ where 
 no light enters, and whence a Stygian reeking comes. 
 
 "Slowly there comes up first the black, frowning head and 
 horns and dull blue eyes and ghastly grinning face of a poor 
 dead bullock, then his pendent legs and his huge carcase. 
 
 " To see the owner's mark on his back they scrape away the 
 slush and grime, then he is swung over the sea, and a stroke 
 of the axe cuts the rope round his horns. Down with a splash 
 falls the vast heavy carcase ; and 20 worth of meat floats on 
 a wave or two, then it is engulfed. Another and another, and 
 twenty-two are thus hauled up and cast into the sea, and this, 
 too, on the first day of a very calm passage. What must it be 
 in a storm ? Oh, the roast beef of old England ! " 
 
 Captain Stanley, R.N., has called public attention to a scene 
 of gross, but we should hope exceptional, cruelty, witnessed by 
 him in the landing of a cargo of cattle, from a foreign port, at 
 Deptford. The poor brutes, sick, bruised, and faint, were 
 savagely urged on with goads and sticks, in a way which the 
 writer could only characterise by an allusion to the fiends in 
 Dore's illustrations of Dante's " Inferno." 
 
 It ought to be widely known that there are two Acts of 
 Parliament providing against cruelty during transit of animals 
 either by railway or in steamboats : 32 and 33 Viet. c. 70, 
 enforcing supply of food and water ; and 12 and 13 Viet. c. 92, 
 forbidding their improper conveyance. The following are 
 examples of prosecutions taken under these statutes : 
 
 " A cattle dealer, of Edinburgh, was summoned at the Oxford 
 Petty Sessions, for having unlawfully neglected to make any 
 request in writing to the London and North- Western Railway 
 Company to supply ten cows with food and water on their 
 transit from Kilmarnock, in Scotland, to Oxford. A second 
 summons charged the defendant with cruelty for conveying
 
 56 FORMS OF NEEDLESS SUFFERING. 
 
 the animals as aforesaid, when they were far advanced in 
 calf. 
 
 " Mr. Percival "Walsh appeared to prosecute on behalf of the 
 Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and 
 said the following were the facts : The ten cows were sent by 
 the defendant from Kilmarnock to Oxford, a distance of about 
 344 miles. They were started, according to the direction of the 
 defendant, at 4 P.M. on the afternoon of Monday, the 30th of 
 September, and did not arrive until about a quarter after seven 
 on the following Wednesday morning. Even if these were 
 steer animals, it would have been a most cruel thing for them 
 to have been kept for thirty-eight hours without food and water. 
 Between four and five o'clock on the morning of Wednesday, 
 the 2nd of October, it was discovered by the brakesman of the 
 train, at Bicester, that some of the animals were lying down in 
 the truck. He drew the attention of the inspector to the fact, 
 and endeavours were made to take them out. Eight of them 
 suffered intensely, but recovered. The other two died. It was a 
 case of most monstrous cruelty, and he should ask the reporters 
 to give the details of the case as fully as they could, with the 
 view of the attention of the Privy Council being directed to the 
 case. He then called witnesses, who proved the facts as stated 
 above, when the magistrates retired, and after being absent 
 about a quarter of an hour, returned into Court. The mayor 
 said that the decision of the Court was, that a fine of 5 
 be inflicted for the first offence, and 5 for the second, with 
 costs. The costs altogether amounted to 14 8s. 6d. Total, 
 24 8s. 6d." 
 
 The cattle drovers used to be a very rough and cruel set, as a 
 class, but of late years there has been great improvement, many 
 of them being remarkably kind as well as steady and respect- 
 able men. In the metropolitan district they require to have a
 
 MODES OF SLAUGHTERING CATTLE. 57 
 
 licence, which is a check upon those who might otherwise 
 show misconduct. The officers of the R.S.P.C.A. also keep a 
 vigilant look-out. The existing law is strictly enforced incases 
 brought before magistrates. The following clause is in the Act 
 12 and 13 Yict. cap. 92 : " If an}' person shall cruelly beat, 
 ill-treat, over-drive, abuse, or torture, or cause or procure to be 
 cruelly beaten, ill-treated, over-driven, abused, or tortured, 
 any animal, every such offender shall for every offence forfeit 
 and pay a penalty not exceeding five pounds." The magis- 
 trates have the power of committing to prison for a period of 
 three months, without option of a fine, for the same offences on 
 conviction. It might be well to appeal more to the better 
 feeling of the drovers, as well as to their fear of punishment 
 by giving good-conduct badges, for instance, in approved cases 
 of habitual humanity. 
 
 The most humane or we should say, rather, the least painful 
 mode of slaughtering oxen has been much discussed. It is 
 strange that no general agreement has been arrived at on a 
 matter where such an amount of practical experience is avail- 
 able. The disputes are chiefly among benevolent theorists. 
 The practice of " pithing," either by piercing the brain through 
 a wound in the forehead by a pole-axe, or by piercing the spinal 
 marrow in the neck, has been recommended by many, and is 
 adopted in some slaughter-houses. It is a very effective method 
 in 'skilled hands, but if awkwardly done would be sure to 
 cause intense suffering. Any one who has witnessed the swift 
 death of the bull by a veteran matador can understand the 
 efficiency of this mode of killing, but few ordinary butchers 
 could skilfully accomplish the feat. A well-known medical 
 man, at a recent meeting of the Society for Prevention of 
 Cruelty to Animals, recommended the " asphyxiating process," 
 or killing animals by exposing them to carbonic acid gas, in 
 

 
 58 FORMS OF NEEDLESS SUFFERING. 
 
 which they would be suffocated. It is not likely that this process 
 will ever come into general use, even if it were practicable, and 
 if it could be shown to do no detriment to the flesh of the 
 animals. As far as experience goes, no method has been pro- 
 posed more efficacious and prompt than the ordinary one of 
 stunning the animal by the blow of a mallet or axe on the 
 forehead, followed immediately by bleeding, either by cutting 
 the large vessels of the throat or piercing the heart with a long 
 sharp knife. The certainty of this mode of slaughtering 
 depends entirely on the strength and the skill of the operator. 
 The only direction in which the efforts of the benevolent can 
 be usefully turned in this matter is, to secure that competent 
 persons be employed in slaughter-houses. No one ought to be 
 allowed to kill without a licence, and the licence ought to be 
 given only after sufficient proof of ability and skill. It is sad 
 to think of the sufferings inflicted by blundering men and lads 
 in this daily process. It is within the province of local magis- 
 trates to license and oversee slaughtei -houses, and more care 
 should be taken that none exercise this craft without licence 
 after sufficient proof of competency. 
 
 Veal is not wholesome or digestible food. White veal is 
 certainly unwholesome, and only very heartless people would 
 touch it if they knew how it is prepared for market. In the 
 killing of oxen there may be sometimes needless suffering, but 
 the cruelty to which poor helpless calves are subjected is 
 atrocious. Their torment begins when being taken to market. 
 The too common plan is to tie their legs and lay them in a 
 cart with their heads hanging below the level of their bodies. 
 If the salesmen or butchers were conveyed in a jolting cart for 
 some hours in this way, they would understand the cruelty of 
 it, if they had any reason or feeling left at the end of the 
 journey. A veterinary surgeon, who examined some calves
 
 CRUELTIES TO CALVES. 59 
 
 after a journey of only a few miles, found the skin on the head 
 and throat tight, the eyes bloodshot, the mouth frothing, and 
 one of them had blood oozing from the nostrils. In fact, the 
 brain was gorged with blood, and the whole frame fevered. 
 The suffering must have been intense, and the meat could not 
 but be diseased. 
 
 The journey completed, a new form of torture is undergone 
 in the slaughter-house. Instead of being quickly put out of pain, 
 the calf is bled at intervals, that the blood may be slowly drawn 
 from the body. Then, when still alive, the poor creature is 
 slung up by the hind legs, with the nose fixed to a rail, and 
 the blood allowed to trickle out, in the hope that every drop 
 may be extracted, and the flesh assume the white hue prized 
 by gourmands. This is how white veal is made, and no won- 
 der it is often found an unwholesome and indigestible diet. 
 Except to please stupid, ignorant cooks, there is no call for any 
 of this barbarous cruelty. The meat is far better when not 
 drained of its blood, and left mere fibre, insipid and white. 
 With regard to the conveyance, Mr. Hunt, a large dealer in 
 Sussex, who had dealt in sucking- calves for forty years, and 
 sent about two thousand every year to market, has recorded 
 his experience : " I attend Salisbury market, and buy a great 
 many calves. They are put into a van with their legs untied, 
 at perfect liberty, and in that manner brought home. In my 
 opinion the practice of tying their legs, and packing them 
 closely in a cart, with their heads hanging down; is a most 
 unnecessary and cruel mode of conveyance. I never had a calf 
 injured while conveying them in an upright position, nor would 
 any other dealer who takes proper care of his animals. All 
 the calves brought to Chichester market are brought standing 
 up or slung 1 in nets underneath the vans. My carts are six feet by 
 five, with open rails on each side, affording a thorough ventila-
 
 60 FORMS OF NEEDLESS SUFFERING. 
 
 tion. Each van holds about fifteen calves, and I travel at the 
 rate of five miles an hour." A dealer at Guildford was lately 
 prosecuted and fined for carrying calves in a cart, tied with 
 their heads hanging down, and there are few magistrates at 
 petty sessions or quarter sessions who would not convict 
 on information of such cruelty. As to the cruelty in the 
 slaughter-house, its removal must be the result of public 
 opinion, and to help this the mystery of "white veal" has 
 been explained. A word from purchasers to the cook and 
 the butcher would put this to rights. If a certain amount of 
 whiteness is required, ascertain that it is not produced by the 
 slow torture of bleeding when the calf is alive. The pole-axe 
 being used, and the head then taken off, the draining of blood 
 from the dead carcase should be the only whitening allowed. 
 This plan is not only more merciful, but the veal is more 
 nourishing and more wholesome. 
 
 What is true of cattle and sheep is too sadly true* of almost 
 every creature used for man's food there is a great amount 
 of thoughtless and heartless cruelty. Take for example the 
 following report of what was lately witnessed by a correspon- 
 dent of the " Times : " 
 
 " On returning last evening to town by the Great Western 
 Railway, when arriving at Swindon my attention was arrested 
 by the loud and continuous cackling of geese conveyed by the 
 train. Having a presentiment that something was wrong, on. 
 reaching Paddington I sought out the trucks in which the 
 poultry were, when I found that they were pent up in flat 
 wooden cases, two deep, which, without having measured them, 
 I should say were about two yards square and say fifteen inches 
 deep. Air was admitted at the top of the cases by apertures, 
 the dimensions of which may be gathered from the circum- 
 stance that it was only by means of the most careful and
 
 CRUELTIES TO POULTRY. 61 
 
 tender manipulations on the part of a railway porter, while I 
 was standing by, that the head of one of the geese, which, 
 no doubt, had been forced through in a sort of death-struggle 
 when gasping for breath, was restored to the case, and the bird 
 thus saved from slow strangulation. 
 
 " Desiring to ascertain as far as I could the condition in which 
 the poultry was, I put my open hands through the bars, when I 
 was shocked to find the birds so closely packed that they seemed 
 actually wedged together. 
 
 " But your readers may imagine how still more shocked I was 
 on learning that these poor geese and fowls had been kept in 
 that painful state since leaving Waterford on the morning of the 
 previous day (how much before is impossible for me to say), 
 and were to remain in that cramped and stifled state yet another 
 long night, as in any case they would not be delivered until this 
 morning. But, worse still, during the whole of this protracted 
 time the poor birds were kept entirely without both food and 
 water. I gathered that, in the summer months, it is not an 
 unusual thing for some of the railway servants, as an act of 
 sheer humanity, to throw water over the cases, hoping, no doubt, 
 that the suffering birds may in some degree slake their burning 
 thirst by the drippings from the bars. 
 
 "And this seems to be the mode in which the heartless dealers 
 supply the English market with Irish poultry ! 
 
 " 1 cannot believe that the British public so renowned for 
 their benevolence and for those noble efforts which distinguish 
 us as a Christian country will tolerate the continuance of sys- 
 tematic torture such as I have described, and which, I submit, 
 would be a disgrace to a nation of savages." 
 
 This form of cruelty, not only to poultry in transit, but when 
 exposed for sale at market, is everywhere common, both at 
 home and abroad. Many men and women, otherwise tender-
 
 62 FOKMS OF NEEDLESS SUFFERING. 
 
 hearted enough, may never have given the matter a moment's 
 thought. A word from those who witness the suffering might 
 set the owners or sellers a- thinking ; and also the wide 
 publication in market towns of reports of convictions would 
 be useful. Not long since, a farmer at Melton Mowbray 
 was fined 2 5s. 6d., for carrying to market some fowls 
 by the legs with their heads hanging down. A few cases 
 of conviction in different parts of the country, made widely 
 known by county newspapers and by local placards, would 
 put a perceptible check on these thoughtless cruelties. 
 
 To give only one or two further instances of needless suffer- 
 ing connected with food : 
 
 Eels are usually kept alive at the fishmonger's shop, but he 
 ought to be obliged to put them out of pain before selling 
 them, and not leave them to be tortured in preparing for the 
 table. The writhing when being skinned shows the pain they 
 suffer. No wonder they are " very tiresome " during the pro- 
 cess, as one operator said. Shakespeare, in "King Lear," refers 
 to the most cruel custom of cockney cooks " crying to the eels to 
 be quiet, when she puts them i' the paste alive." Fishmongers 
 should, before the eels go out of the shop, sever the spine close 
 to the head, or otherwise cause speedy death, so as to prevent 
 needless pain in cooking. Lobsters and crabs ought to be 
 pierced, to prevent the slow torture of being boiled or steamed 
 to death. There are men who regularly go to the respectable 
 fishmongers in London to do this, and the dexterity with 
 which they use the sharp piercing rod is remarkable. One 
 object may be to prevent the poor creatures from dropping their 
 claws in the torture of scalding, but it is humane to shorten their 
 time of suffering. The claws are usually tied together to pre- 
 vent them fighting, which is an improvement on the old bar- 
 barity of pegging the claws with wooden pins, a practice now
 
 SEAL FISHERY. 63 
 
 by law forbidden. The fishmongers or salesmen might be com- 
 pelled to kill all fish sold by them, to prevent the greater 
 torment they too often receive in inexperienced hands. 
 
 For the clothing as well as the food of man there must be 
 much destruction of animal life. The same principle holds 
 good as to the killing of animals for clothing as for food that 
 it should be done with as little waste of life and with as little 
 suffering as possible. That this is not always considered it 
 would be easy to show ; but it would take too much space to 
 describe the various ways in which needless waste of life and 
 needless suffering occur in providing for the necessities and still 
 more the luxuries of dress. One example of the whole must 
 suffice. In an article in the " Daily Telegraph " on the possible 
 extermination of the seal, from the increased demand for seal- 
 skin jackets, some comments on the circumstances attending 
 the capture and destruction of seals deserve the consideration 
 of those who wear or who covet this luxurious article of 
 dress. 
 
 " The time chosen for the seal fishery is unfortunately the 
 very period that of all others ought to be kept close. Except 
 for a very short part of the year the seal lives to all intents and 
 purposes on the open sea. But the female when about to bring 
 forth seeks the shelter of the shore, where she suckles and 
 watches her cubs until they are old enough to shift for them- 
 selves. At this time, wherever there are seals along the coast, 
 large herds of them will be found from a quarter to half a mile 
 inland. The proportions are very much those of a drove of 
 deer. The main body will consist of often several hundred 
 females, each with one or two helpless little ones, while the 
 males hang about the outskirts of the flock, and relieve the 
 monotony of their existence on shore by obstinate and san-
 
 64 FOKMS OF NEEDLESS SUFFERING. 
 
 guinary pitched battles with one another. As soon as a herd 
 of this kind is spied, the boats are manned, and the whole 
 vessel's crew, armed with bludgeons and axes, starts upon a 
 ' cutting-out expedition,' at the horrors of which humanity 
 may well shudder. The only way to effectually kill a seal with 
 completeness and despatch is by a heavy blow with a bludgeon, 
 or a deep cut with an axe, so as either to crush or sever the 
 nasal bones ; and when the boats' crews have got ashore an 
 indiscriminate slaughter is commenced, the whole herd being 
 often butchered before a single one can reach the water's edge. 
 The tumult and skurry of the attack over, the real work com- 
 mences. The adult quarry is skinned with all possible haste, 
 and as often as not with the life still in it. The cubs, who lie 
 moaning and whinnying by the side of their dams, are knocked 
 on the head if big enough to give their fur any value, and if 
 too small to be worth the skinning are left without even the 
 mercy of a coup de grdce. Old seal hunters tell us and we 
 can well believe it that it takes a man some time to get used 
 to such cruel butchery, and that the half-human wailing of the 
 little calves, as they flop and roll about the mangled carcase 
 of their mother, is something that, until he is hardened to the 
 work, will make his sleep uneasy at night. To put the thing 
 in another shape, we may roughly say that the trim sealskin 
 jacket, of which its fair owner is so proud, which becomes her 
 so well, and which keeps out the cold, represents some half- 
 dozen dams, who have more or less been skinned alive, while 
 their little ones have been left to die in all the slow agony of 
 starvation. 
 
 " There are some facts in the great world's course which, 
 much as we may regret them, we are yet unable in any way 
 to alter. Nothing will ever make fox-hunting a pleasant 
 process for the fox, or shed a tranquil joy over the prize pig's
 
 SEAL HUNTING. 65 
 
 last moments. Seal-hunting is dangerous and uncomfortable 
 work, and, not unnaturally, the one object of the seal-hunter is 
 to get the greatest possible number of skins with the smallest 
 possible expenditure of time and trouble. The work is butchery 
 pure and simple, and, much as we may regret its horrible 
 features, we cannot possibly hope to see them refined away, or 
 expect the day when an officer of the Royal Society for the 
 Prevention of Cruelty to Animals shall be appointed to each 
 Dundee sealing brig. The simple facts stand thus that a 
 sealskin jacket is made of sealskin ; that, to get the skin, we 
 must knock the seal on the nose ; and that, if the fur is to have 
 a proper gloss and lustre on it, the seal must be skinned as 
 nearly as may be alive. Apart, however, from considerations 
 of humanity, it is fast becoming a serious question whether the 
 present demand for sealskin jackets is not likely to end in the 
 total extermination of the seal itself. The Norwegian and 
 Swedish Governments have had the matter under their con- 
 sideration, and have communicated with our own Board of 
 Trade ; and there is, it seems, a unanimous consensus of opinion 
 to the effect that, unless a close time is adopted, the seal, if not 
 entirely exterminated, will soon become so reduced in numbers 
 as to render the fishing unremunerative." 
 
 Mr. Frank Buckland has taken a great deal of trouble, and 
 has written much, in support of an international compact as to 
 the time of beginning seal hunting. As yet his exertions 
 have not had effect, for although the British fishers have gene- 
 rally expressed their willingness to abstain from early killing, 
 other nations have not assented to the proposal. The fishery 
 this year is said to be a failure ; and no wonder, when we find 
 the leading daily paper of Christiania thus speaking of the fishery 
 of last year : " The captains give heartrending descriptions of the 
 manner in which the fishing was conducted, owing to its having
 
 66 FORMS OF NEEDLESS SUFFERING. 
 
 commenced too soon namely, at the close of March. There was 
 this year a good prospect of all the vessels being able to return 
 full. Thousands of pregnant female seals were to be seen swim- 
 ming about preparatory to giving birth to their young on the 
 ice, over the shoals frequented by the shrimps, on which the 
 seals principally subsist. But the vessels were lying in wait, 
 and such a destruction commenced that after the lapse of three 
 days the fishing was utterly destroyed, and thousands of young 
 seals were heard crying piteously after their slaughtered 
 mothers. The young seal is worthless until it is three or four 
 weeks old. If the fishing is conducted in this manner for a very 
 few years more, the seals will be utterly exterminated." It is, 
 in a word, the old story of the golden egg. Already the fisheries 
 are less productive than they were, and in a few years there 
 will hardly be a seal left, except within those extreme Arctic 
 limits, the dangers and terrors of which not even greed can 
 tempt the fisherman to face. 
 
 Whatever the scarcity of seals may be, till they are wholly 
 extinct there will be people to pay high prices for sealskin 
 jackets. It is the same with other creatures destroyed for 
 ornamental dress. The war of extermination will be found to 
 have been waged in the milliner's behalf. When we read of a 
 lady appearing at a grand ball, her dress trimmed with the 
 plumage of song birds ; when we see little humming-birds worn 
 as an ornament upon hats, and all manner of feathers and 
 plumes, we then recognise the lamentable and unalterable truth 
 that humanity towards the lower animals is a sentiment which, 
 however commendable in itself, must yet be strictty subordinated 
 to the necessities of a lady's toilette. Here and there a lady 
 may be found unselfish and tender-hearted enough to abstain 
 from such ornaments, and men of sense will think all the more 
 of her for it ; but the efforts of the humane, in the matter of
 
 CRUELTY TO HORSES. 67 
 
 dress, must be limited chiefly to getting legislation as to close 
 seasons, so that the poor animals and birds may be protected 
 while engaged in rearing their tender young. 
 
 We now come to the cruelties inflicted on animals that assist 
 the labour of man. It seems a base thing to refuse good treat- 
 ment to creatures habitually engaged in our service, and 
 by whose toils we are directly profited. Yet the want of 
 sympathy and care is here only too common. Yery often there 
 is excessive and unremitting labour ; loads disproportioned to 
 the animal's strength ; insufficient food and rest ; and inattention 
 to the many painful diseases and other consequences of ill- 
 treatment. There are many humane servants who take pleasure 
 in treating well the animals under their charge, and such treat- 
 ment should always be encouraged by the owners, if only for 
 their own interest. But the eye of the master cannot always be 
 upon hirelings, and much cruelty passes unseen and unreproved. 
 No one can pass along our streets and highways without wit- 
 nessing painful scenes of cruelty to horses ; overtaxed strength, 
 furious pace, savage blows, and jerking of the hard reins. On 
 the towing-paths of canals, in quarries, and many places these 
 scenes occur. Coal carts are often drawn by feeble old horses unfit 
 for the load, and the toil increased by the heads being reined up 
 on the steepest inclines. The owners and salesmen ought to be 
 made responsible for all such cruelties, as well as the hardened 
 reckless drivers. 
 
 A large number of horses, ponies, and donkeys are employed 
 underground. The inspectors of mines ought to inquire of 
 overseers and responsible persons if they are properly treated. 
 
 With regard to harness, it is a matter of common sense as 
 well as common humanity to have it as light as possible, and as 
 little of it as is consistent with strength and wear. It is not so
 
 68 FORMS OF NEEDLESS SUFFERING. 
 
 much for the difference of weight to carry or burden to draw, 
 but for the greater ease and comfort of the animal. The huge, 
 heavy, ugly collars that used to be seen on farmers' and carriers' 
 horses are going out, and are only fit to be shown at country 
 fairs with clowns grinning through them, as relics of ruder times. 
 All parts of harness should be as easy as possible. "We must not 
 judge of the ill effects merely from sores that are seen, though 
 these are often bad enough. Over-pressure on any part, either 
 from weight or tightness, interferes with the circulation, and 
 causes much pain and discomfort, and if long continued will 
 produce internal diseases. Tight straps, heavy collars, badly made 
 saddles, and ill-fitting harness generally, are all injurious to 
 comfort and health, and inflict needless cruelty. 
 
 The use of " blinkers " or " winkers " is also a needless 
 mode of producing discomfort. Most coachmen will tell you 
 that the horses would get frightened if allowed to see all about 
 them, especially in towns. This is no doubt partly true when 
 they have always been accustomed to being half-blindfolded, 
 and led to depend wholly on the reins and the whip. It would 
 hardly be safe to leave off blinkers suddenly when they have 
 always been used ; but if young horses were " broken in for 
 harness " without them, and allowed the free use of their sight, 
 and of their own sagacity, they would be more easily driven, 
 and do their work more comfortably. In many departments 
 of work, such as on railways, blinkers are not used ; nor are 
 they in field artillery, in the Army Transport Corps, and 
 other public services. The intelligent brutes know what they 
 are about, and are less likely to be frightened and unmanage- 
 able than if they were half-blinded, with noise and confusion 
 all round. 
 
 The truth is that custom and fashion prove the hindrance, 
 rather than any good reason, to the removal of blinkers. Being
 
 BLINKERS AND BEARING REINS. 69 
 
 accustomed to them, their absence in carriages would at first 
 seem as strange as their presence would in the hunting field. 
 If some people of position set the example, it would soon be 
 followed, and the eye, even of coachmen, would get accustomed 
 to the absence of what is really a nuisance and deformity to 
 the horse's head. 
 
 A still worse point of modern harness is the general use of 
 the bearing-rein. Here, as with blinkers, a sudden removal of 
 the rein might not be safe, as most horses have learned to 
 depend on the bit, and are used to being pulled up by the 
 bearing-rein. If trained without them, there would be no 
 doubt as to the superiority of the usage. It is absurd to 
 suppose that the bearing-rein is necessary to keep a horse up. 
 With free reins, so as to allow of the play of the head, and of 
 natural change of muscle in going up or going down hill, the 
 sagacity and sureness of foot of the horse would come into play, 
 which are hindered and destroyed by the bearing-rein. 
 
 It is used " to give an arched neck and smart appearance," 
 but a good horse will hold its head well without such artificial 
 means, and no art can give to a sorry animal the proud crest 
 and arched neck of a well-bred horse. Ignorant people may 
 think, on seeing carriage horses tossing their heads up and 
 down, and champing their bits, that these are marks of high 
 spirit, whereas the poor animals are really trying to relieve 
 themselves of the discomfort and pain inseparable from having 
 the head pinioned by a tight short rein. 
 
 The late Field-Marshal Sir John Burgoyne has thus stated 
 his opinion as to the use of the bearing-rein for horses in 
 draught : " It is not only inflicting a torment, but is abso-. 
 lutely injurious to the working power of the animal, as is 
 clearly perceptible in witnessing the difference in the natural 
 position of the horse, if with or without it, in drawing a load
 
 70 FORMS OF NEEDLESS SUFFERING. 
 
 up hill. Though highly objectionable in the case of carriage 
 horses, the cruelty is far greater in the case of the cart horse, 
 where there is less spare power of action, and, what is of far 
 more consequence, the greater number of hours of the day in 
 which the animal is subject to it." 
 
 Mr. Fleming, one of the highest authorities in veterinary 
 surgery, and indeed in all matters pertaining to horses, has 
 published a very strong statement as to the evils and disad- 
 vantages of the bearing-rein, and his opinion is worth every 
 consideration. Mr. Fleming says that it wearies the head and 
 neck of the horse by the unnatural position which it causes ; 
 it gives the animal a hard mouth, and predisposes it to stumble ; 
 it tends to produce giddiness or even apoplexy and other serious 
 complaints. The only wonder is why it has been tolerated so long ; 
 but when we remember how apt we are to overlook glaring evils, 
 simply because their prevalence is so general and so familiar to 
 us and particularly when we become aware of the nature and 
 character of the men to whom so many of us resign the entire 
 control and management of our horses we cease to be astonished 
 that the long-suffering quadrupeds have been permitted to 
 endure such indignity, inconvenience, and torture. 
 
 " The Builder," one of the most practical and utilitarian j ournals, 
 and one not likely to be moved by sentimental notions, has, 
 among other items in the shape of wants, said : " I want the 
 cruel, silly bearing-rein to be universally abolished. None but 
 fools use bearing-reins. Government should at once put a tax 
 on these instruments of torture." 
 
 On the subject of horse-shoeing, in connection with which 
 there is much cruelty, I recommend to the owners of horses the 
 practical treatise, by Mr. Fleming, published by Chapman and 
 Hall. A little treatise, entitled " The Horse Book," published 
 by the R.S.P.C.A., contains numerous useful directions and
 
 THE KNACKER'S YARD. 71 
 
 sensible hints for the right treatment in many points of this 
 valuable helper of man's labours. 
 
 The most deliberate cruelty to which horses are subject is the 
 practice of buying up old roadsters, hunters, carriage horses, 
 and even racers, when past service for the rich, from old age 
 or disease, and turning them to cabs or other oppressive work, 
 upon the calculation of how many months they may be driven 
 so as to return a profit, with the addition of the sale of the 
 carcase at the knacker's yard. That poor men should buy such 
 horses is not to be wondered at, but it is a mean and cruel thing 
 in the rich to sell them, for the sake of the small sum they can 
 fetch, for such purposes. Before a Parliamentary Committee 
 many almost incredible facts were brought out in evidence as to 
 the sale of old horses, and the proceedings at the knackers' 
 yards. Much cruelty in this direction is unavoidable, yet appeal 
 may surely be made to the rich not to let their horses that have 
 served them well be doomed to end their days in painful misery. 
 
 In places of holiday resort, where ponies, donkeys, and other 
 animals are made to minister to amusement, it is useful to have 
 a warning notice conspicuously posted. This has been done 
 with good result in various places ; and we subjoin the form of 
 such a notice, as a pattern to be used in other places where 
 they may be useful. 
 
 " If any person shall cruelly beat, ill-treat, over-drive, abuse, 
 or torture, or cause or procure to be cruelly beaten, ill-treated, 
 over-driven, abused, or tortured, any animal, every such offender 
 shall for every such offence forfeit and pay a penalty not ex- 
 ceeding five pounds ; " or, instead of a fine, the magistrates 
 may commit the offender to prison with hard labour for three 
 months. 
 
 " Whereas information has been received that ponies, donkeys,
 
 72 FORMS OF NEEDLESS SUFFERING. 
 
 and goats within this district are cruelly beaten, and over- 
 ridden by their riders and drivers, both as regards weight and 
 speed, notice is hereby given that the above recited sections of 
 12 and 13 Viet. cap. 92 will be rigidly enforced against all 
 offenders. 
 
 " The rider of an animal cruelly ill-treated is liable to the 
 above punishment as well as the driver, and frequently such 
 person deserves the heaviest punishment." 
 
 The last remark, as to riders being often most to blame, is 
 perfectly just, and a few fines rigorously enforced and publicly 
 advertised would check much thoughtless cruelty. Through 
 the watchfulness and kindly appeals of benevolent persons there 
 has been a marked improvement of late years in the conduct of 
 boys in charge of animals kept for amusement of holiday people, 
 an improvement which residents in the neighbourhood can, 
 both by offering rewards and by threatening the hardened, 
 sustain and increase. 
 
 One special claim all animals employed in labour have the 
 rest of the seventh day. It is a notable fact, and in keeping 
 with all the precepts of Divine mercy, that the Sabbath was 
 appointed as a day of rest for beast, as well as of rest and holiness 
 for man. " Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy." 
 " Six days thou shalt do thy work, and on the seventh day thou 
 shalt rest : that thine ox and thine ass may rest, and the son of 
 thy handmaid, and the stranger, may be refreshed " (Exod. xx. 
 8, 10 ; Exod. xxiii. 12 ; Deut. v. 14). In London there. were 
 six-day cabs, the owners taking licence for six days a week, and 
 giving their men and horses rest on the seventh. The plate and 
 number of these cabs were of a different colour from the seven- 
 day cabs. It is to be regretted, both for the sake of the men 
 and their horses, that the privilege has been abolished.
 
 CRUEL SPORTS. 73 
 
 At one of the meetings of the British Association for the 
 Advancement of Science, at Cork, in 1843, Mr. Bianconi, the 
 well-known car proprietor in Ireland, read a paper giving his 
 experience in regard to public conveyances. One of his state- 
 ments is worthy of being noted. Mr. Bianconi said he had 
 found by long experience that he could better work a horse 
 eight hours a day for six days in the week, than six hours a day 
 for seven days in the week. By not working on Sunday he 
 effected a saving of 12 per cent. 
 
 We Tiave next to consider the sufferings of animals in connec- 
 tion with the amusements of man. I have already admitted 
 that cases are comparatively rare where animals are tortured 
 for the sheer sport of the thing. "When suffering is caused in 
 field sports, or in other so-called amusements, various motives 
 and feelings are in play, and the pain inflicted is overlooked or 
 forgotten. This can hardly, however, be said of such brutal 
 amusements as bull-baiting, dog-fighting, cock-fighting, and 
 other sports which are in this country now under the ban of 
 the law. It is only in secret that such deeds of darkness can 
 now be practised, as they still sometimes are. Cock-fighting 
 matches, for instance, are not yet things of the past. It 
 used to be said that by the abolition of these sports the manly 
 spirit of the English people would be weakened ; an argument 
 which was much used in Parliament in opposing legislation on 
 the subject. The reply was, that brutal feeling was no part 
 of real courage ; and experience has proved that the gradual 
 decline of cruel sports has not weakened the manlier virtues, 
 but has removed hindrances to improvement ^in the moral cha- 
 racter of the working classes. We have no doubt that other 
 cruel amusements, which are still openly defended and encour- 
 aged, will be abandoned under the influence of public opinion, 
 
 F
 
 74 FORMS OF NEEDLESS SUFFERING. 
 
 improved and enlightened by Christian principle. The Queen 
 of England does not now, as in the days of Queen Elizabeth, 
 patronise by her presence the dog-pit or the bear-garden. It 
 is satisfactory to observe how the line of demarcation between 
 honourable or decorous sports, and low or cruel amusements, is 
 gradually shifting, and how one by one those practices which 
 formed the recreation of refined society in former times are 
 left to the dregs of the populace. We have no doubt that 
 some cruel and demoralising amusements which are still preva- 
 lent will be disowned as barbarous, and their co-existence with 
 the advanced state of society in other respects will excite the 
 surprise of a future generation. 
 
 Of this kind is the sport of pigeon-shooting, as practised at 
 Hurlingham and other lower places of public resort. Of these 
 matches the " Times " has thus spoken in terms of manly 
 protest. The only wonder is that the " Times " and other 
 respectable journals continue to report proceedings which are 
 so strongly condemned as brutal and demoralising : 
 
 " This so-called ' sport ' goes on day by day and week after 
 week at Hurlingham, and there are ' champion matches ' and 
 ' private matches,' and ' Lords and Commons' matches/ and 
 ' conquering matches,' all meaning endless death and butchery 
 to the ' blue rocks,' a race of birds which must be both hardy 
 and prolific, as we are informed on very good authority that 
 the birds supplied on recent occasions ' never were better.' We 
 wish we could think any of the excellence attributed to the 
 feathered victims was reflected on the human bipeds who fre- 
 quent Hurlingham. Worse, rather than better, so far as tender 
 feeling and humanity are concerned, must be the condition of all 
 those ' ladies of pain ' who return from Hurlingham sated with 
 pigeon slaughter, dusty and excited, to swallow down their 
 dinners, and then to rush off to bewitch the world of fashion at
 
 PIGEON MATCHES. 75 
 
 eome gay reception. But pigeon-shooting at Hurlingham has 
 uglier features still than that of cruelty to animals. The old 
 lied House matches, if any one alive remembers them, were 
 confined to a few crack shots, whose skill in bringing down their 
 birds was the wonder of a small knot of ardent admirers. There 
 might occasionally be a bet or two, but as the stakes were small 
 and the company limited, the gambling which attended these 
 matches was unimportant. But these sweepstakes at Hurling- 
 ham have become the rage. Fashion follows them in its sense- 
 less way. The highest prize is 450. Vast numbers of idlers 
 go regularly to ' the Park,' and the result has been that betting 
 has shown its ugly face in that enclosure, and has become a 
 prominent feature of the proceedings. In this way what was 
 bad in its origin has become worse as it went "on. Pigeon- 
 shooting, always irrational and brutalising in itself, has begot a 
 species of gambling of its own, and the matches at Hurlingham 
 have grown to be a mere vehicle for idle betting. When we 
 hear that the odds against Sir Frederick This were 100 to 10, 
 that Baron That was freely supported at 100 to 8, that there 
 was much ' general betting ' when we know all this, and hear 
 it every day dinned into our ears, by the frequenters of ' the 
 Park,' that it is the most charming and exciting place on earth, 
 we can only say that we think it high time such senseless, such 
 cruel, and such costly amusements should be put down, not 
 indeed by law, but by what is above all law the instinctive 
 feeling which all true Englishmen and all lovers of legitimate 
 sport have against practices which are alike brutalising, ruinous, 
 and debasing, and which are revolting at once to the humanity 
 and the common sense of the community." 
 
 We are sorry to learn that the bad example of the old 
 country has begun to be followed in America. In Boston, of 
 all places, there is a club, the Tremont Gun Club, for pigeon
 
 76 FORMS OF NEEDLESS SUFFERING. 
 
 matches. The Massachusetts Society for Preventing Cruelty 
 tried a prosecution, but the judge who tried the case decided 
 that it was not within the scope of the existing Act for prevent- 
 ing cruelty. " Nine-tenths of game birds," he said, " are shot 
 by sportsmen, and for sp&rt ; ' there was no intent to mutilate ;' 
 the quality of the act must be determined by the act itself, and 
 not by the result. Upon the facts as presented in this case I 
 do not think a case of cruelty is made out, and I very much 
 doubt whether the shooting of game comes within the spirit or 
 scope of the statute enacted to prevent cruelty to animals. The 
 Society, instead of relying upon the present "statute to prevent 
 shooting-matches, should apply to _ the legislature for a special 
 law to prohibit such games. >r 
 
 The Society has rightly determined to try the matter again. 
 In England the " intent " to mutilate or inflict injury is not 
 requisite for conviction, and many penalties are incurred by 
 those who repudiate wilful and wanton cruelty. Up till this 
 time the American press and American law have strongly sup- 
 ported the efforts of the humane, and in regard to pigeon-shoot- 
 ing especially, condemnation even stronger than what we have 
 quoted from the " Times " has been passed, with expressions of 
 wonder that such brutality could be tolerated in England. 
 
 We get upon more difficult and debateable ground when we 
 speak of field sports, as these are commonly understood. Even 
 in the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty the subject 
 is for the present tabooed, some of the keenest sportsmen being 
 warm friends and liberal supporters of the Society. In these 
 pursuits, more than in any other department of animal suffering, 
 there is no desire to inflict cruelty. The sportsman is intent 
 on amusement merely, or it may be health, or is actuated by 
 motives which do not take into account the sufferings caused to 
 animals. These are either never considered, or overborne by
 
 MORALITY OF FIELD SPORTS. 77 
 
 the excitement of the sport, or regarded as of little account 
 compared with the advantages and pleasure of the pursuit. 
 Many a sportsman has never once had a thought of cruelty in 
 connection with his sport Public opinion, in fact, is not strong 
 enough to pass condemnation on field sports, as it does on other 
 forms of cruelty. There is the more reason for those who 
 think such amusements cruel to ventilate the subject, and give 
 clear utterance to their opinions. On this matter no one has 
 written with more force than Mr. E. A. Freeman, in an essay 
 published some years ago in the " Fortnightly Review," and 
 reprinted as a pamphlet by the Tunbridge Wells Local Society 
 for Preventing Cruelty, one of the zealous and useful branches 
 of the parent institution. A few extracts from Mr. Freeman's 
 essay, entitled " The Morality of Field Sports," will bring the 
 question clearly before our readers. 
 
 Not very long ago a street boy in a country town was 
 charged before the local magistrates with cruelty to animals in 
 setting two dogs to worry a cat. The offence was proved ; a 
 fine was inflicted and paid ; but the boy's father added the 
 comment that he thought it hard that his son should be fined 
 for setting dogs on a cat, while gentlemen set dogs on hares and 
 were not fined. The bench, on such an occasion, has the great 
 advantage of being able to keep silence itself and, if need be, to 
 command silence in others ; and, as I heard the story, it did not 
 appear that any attempt was made to answer the question. 
 Neither the boy nor his father was likely to have read the 
 Memoirs of Windham, but, if they had, they would have found 
 their question forestalled. Windham, a patron of everything 
 that called itself " sport " " sport " of course commonly 
 meaning the death or torture of some creature said, manfully 
 and consistently, " No one who condemns bull-baiting can con- 
 sistently defend fox-hunting." I do not know whether in his
 
 78 FORMS OF NEEDLESS SUFFERING. 
 
 day the question of fox-hunting had been seriously raised ; the 
 battle which Windham had to fight was on behalf of bull-bait- 
 ing. In that noble and manly and English sport, as its votaries 
 then called it, Windham, a scholar, a statesman, a man of 
 refined taste, and, on many points, of almost morbid con- 
 scientiousness, professed that he "rejoiced." And he at least 
 had the firm standing-ground of thorough consistency. His 
 proposition is essentially true. It will bear turning about and 
 testing in every way. He drew from it one practical inference ; 
 I draw from it another. From the admitted right to torture 
 the fox, "Windham inferred the right to torture the bull. From 
 the admitted sin of torturing the bull, I infer the sin of torturing 
 the fox. But Windham's saying supplies a common point 
 from which we may start in opposite directions. He at least 
 went to the root of the matter ; he saw how the case really 
 stood, and neither deceived himself nor tried to deceive others 
 by irrelevant and sophistical distinctions. 
 
 To chase a calf or a donkey either till it is torn in pieces or 
 till it sinks from weariness, would be scouted as a cruel act. 
 Do the same to a deer and it is a noble and royal sport. It is, 
 as we have seen, a legal crime to worry a cat. To worry a hare 
 is a gallant diversion. And men who share Windham's tastes 
 without Windham's consistency, men who would lift up their 
 hands in horror at the wanton torture of a bull or bear, deem no 
 praises too high for the heroic sport which consists in the 
 wanton torture of a fox. 
 
 I shall be asked, Do I condemn all persons who practise 
 amusements of this kind ? I answer that I have nothing to do 
 with condemning persons, but only with condemning things. I 
 believe cruelty in all cases to be a sin ; but of the degree of the 
 sin which is incurred by this or that man, whether in a Roman 
 amphitheatre or in an English hunting-field, I wholly refuse to
 
 ONLY A FOX-HUNTER. 79 
 
 judge. The amount of sin, in this as in all other matters, must 
 mainly depend on the amount of light sinned against, and of 
 the amount of light sinned against by this or that man no 
 other man can judge. It will always depend largely upon the 
 circumstances of a man's age, country, and position. It is 
 undoubtedly true that many high-minded and cultivated, and 
 in other respects even humane, men indulge now in hunting 
 and shooting. They call hunting and shooting noble and 
 manly sports. But Windham was also a high-minded and 
 cultivated man, and Windham rejoiced in sports which he 
 deemed noble and manly, but from which the modern fox- 
 hunter now turns away in disgust. A gentleman of our own day 
 who frequents cock-fights and badger-baits is undoubtedly a 
 brute. So would a prince of Elizabeth's day have been, if he 
 had, like Constantino, thrown his prisoners to the lions. And 
 I believe that a day will come when fox-hunting will be looked 
 on as no less unworthy of a man of sense and refinement than 
 badger-baiting is now. But though conventionality may do a 
 great deal, it cannot do everything. It cannot change wrong 
 into right. I cannot but think that the indulgence in cruelty 
 in any form and in any degree must more or less harden the 
 heart. I am far from saying that every fox-hunter is a bad 
 man, but I certainly think that, cceteris paribus, the fox-hunter 
 would be a better man if he were not a fox-hunter. And few 
 would approve of devotion to pursuits of this kind when it 
 becomes the distinguishing feature in the character. A mere 
 fox-hunter, a mere bull-baiter, a mere amateur of gladiators 
 can never have been an estimable character in any age. 
 
 I can remember the indignant remonstrances of several news- 
 papers at the attempt to introduce among us a form of " sport ' 
 which consisted of the mere slaughter of deer, without any of 
 the elements of pursuit or adventure, the animals being simply
 
 80 FORMS OF NEEDLESS SUFFERING. 
 
 driven up to be butchered by royal personages sitting at their 
 ease. The sheer brutal love of slaughter was here stripped of 
 all disguises, and public opinion condemned it. So it is with 
 the lowest brutality of all, the " sport," of pigeon-shooting, 
 where to mere wanton slaughter the low element of gambling 
 is added. Fine gentlemen still practise the " sport," and fine 
 ladies look calmly on, but protests in more than one newspaper 
 show that they do not carry the universal feeling of the country 
 with them. 
 
 There are two forms of modern hunting which differ from 
 fox-hunt ng, and approach to shooting, in so far as the animal 
 hunted is good for food. These are the chase of the deer and 
 that of the hare. But no one will say that modern deer- 
 hunting is, like the hunting of the savage, a pursuit undertaken 
 as the only means of procuring the only available food. 
 
 The modern deer-hunt is simply a run after a creature which 
 there is confessedly no design to kill, but on which a great deal 
 of fright and weariness is wantonly inflicted. The " sport " or 
 pleasure to be found in such a piece of contemptible cruelty is 
 certainly hard to understand. And after all, in deer-hunting, 
 too, there are ugly doings done behind the scenes. In a late 
 article on the subject in the " Quarterly Review " we were 
 calmly told, in language which savoured a little of the slaughter- 
 house, how the hounds at certain times were allowed to "go 
 into " a hind that is, I suppose, to tear her in pieces in order 
 to " blood " them. A man who set his dogs to tear a sheep in 
 pieces would at once find his way before the magistrates, and 
 few people would pity him if his sentence was as severe as the 
 law allows. The subtle distinction between one ruminant and 
 another is really beyond me. The stag-hunting of the few 
 districts of England where the wild red deer still lingers, differs 
 greatly from the royal sport of Windsor Park. It is at least
 
 HARE-HUNTING AND COUESING. 81 
 
 shrouded in those disguises which veil from some minds the in- 
 herent cruelty of all these pursuits. But from my view of the 
 case it is, like the rest, wanton cruelty. 
 
 As for the hares, I find that hare-hunting is looked on with 
 different feelings in different parts. In some districts it is as 
 noble and gallant and manly as any other form of "sport ;" in 
 others, while fox-hunting is gentlemanlike and even ladylike, 
 hare-hunting is said to be looked down on as vulgar. These are 
 distinctions into which I cannot enter ; the principle of cruelty 
 is essentially the same in all these sports, and it is perfectly 
 indifferent whether it is a prince or a tinker by whom the 
 cruelty is committed. Still, in the case of hare-hunting, the 
 victim is so specially timid and defenceless, that to condemn it 
 to wanton flight and torment, may perhaps need a harder heart 
 than to do the like by a stag or fox. The sufferings of the hare 
 could call forth a passing emotion of pity even from a heathen 
 sportsman. But I presume that, in the amusement of coursing, 
 to see what Arrian shrank from looking on, and to hear " the 
 last human cry of the hare in the fangs of the dogs," forms part 
 of the refined enjoyment. 
 
 Fox-hunting is said to have some social advantages, I mean 
 real social advantages, in linking together class and class. In 
 this I believe there is some truth as regards some particular 
 classes ; but supposing it to be more true than it is, it does not 
 touch the question. It should not be forgotten that the sports 
 of the amphitheatre had, as Mr. Lecky acutely remarks, a 
 direct political advantage. They afforded the only time when 
 the Roman despot and his subjects were brought face to face, 
 and when he was made to feel some degree of responsibility. 
 We are told too that, if there were no field sports, country gen- 
 tlemen would find nothing to do. This again does not touch 
 the question, and the saying is a libel on very many country
 
 82 FORMS OF NEEDLESS SUFFERING. 
 
 gentlemen, both among those who hunt and those who do not. 
 I could point to a good many country gentlemen, to men who 
 are the salt of their class, who whether for my reasons or for 
 any other I cannot always say never join in field-sports, and 
 what is more, whose public and private duties would not allow 
 them time to join in them. We are told that many men, if 
 they were not hunting, would be doing something worse. 
 This I can well believe ; but it only proves that hunting is not 
 the worst of all occupations, and I never said that it was. 
 
 It does seem to me that the effects of these pursuits on 
 the general character of their votaries is not a good one. The 
 difference of degrees of course i's infinite ; many men hunt who 
 can hardly be called " hunting men ; " but when the pursuit is 
 followed to such a degree as to be a marked feature in a man's 
 character, the effect is not good. 
 
 I am not going to discuss the wide subject of the game-laws, one 
 which would carry me far away from my main subject. I will 
 only say that, next to a Jamaica court-martial, no mockery of 
 justice can be conceived greater than that of a game-preserving 
 squire sitting to convict a poacher on the evidence of a game- 
 keeper. The sentence may be, and often is, perfectly just ; 
 the law, good or bad, must be enforced, and the poacher is 
 in most cases a thorough scoundrel. But it will be hard 
 indeed to make people believe that the magistrate is not de- 
 ciding in the interest of his own order and of his own pleasures, 
 rather than in the interests of justice. As myself a county 
 magistrate, and one of a class which, I must say, is more 
 abused that it deserves, I may honestly say that, even in this 
 matter, we are " not so bad as we seem." Still the thing has 
 a very ugly look in all cases, and ever and anon it becomes 
 an ugly reality. 
 
 The advocates of humanity have a hard battle to fight, but
 
 PROGRESS OF HUMANITY. 83 
 
 I am not without hope. The good cause has made great 
 advances. As in everything else, there are fluctuations and 
 reactions, and perhaps of late years there may have been a 
 certain reaction in favour of cruelty. So it has been with the 
 growth of political freedom ; still, political freedom has ad- 
 vanced, and so I feel that it must in the end be with the cause of 
 humanity. "With regard to man and beast alike, great has been 
 the progress since the days of Titus, great has been the pro- 
 gress since the days of Elizabeth. And in every step in the 
 right direction, whether in the cause of freedom or in the 
 cause of humanity, I can rejoice. I detest the cruelty of fox- 
 hunting ; yet when I look back to what has been, I feel glad 
 that, at least among persons of decent character, fox-hunting 
 is the worst form of cruelty that I have to condemn. And a 
 chain of witnesses has never been wanted since the days of 
 Saint Anselm and Saint Ceadda, and the old time before them. 
 Jane Grey with her Plato before her, while " the poor souls 
 who knew not what true pleasure was " were seeking for it in 
 the pangs of the hart panting for the water-brooks, stands to 
 all time as a beacon, specially to those of her own sex who can 
 seek for pleasure in the infliction of pain. In every age there 
 have been some who could say that 
 
 " No bright bird, insect or gentle beast 
 I consciously have injured, but still loved 
 And cherished these my kindred." 
 
 Who does not remember in his childhood the young hero, in 
 the tale of Sandford and Merton, who, in the spirit of the old 
 saints, withstands the torturers of the hunted hare, and refuses, 
 even under the blows of the savage hunter, to betray the un- 
 fortunate ? The protests of the gentle Cowper, the warning 
 voice of the "Ancient Mariner," must still sound in some ears.
 
 84 FORMS OF NEEDLESS SUFFERING. 
 
 I find in the life of the great and good Dr. Petrie that, through 
 his whole life he raised his protest against sports of this kind, 
 and warned many a sportsman that his pursuits were those of 
 the savage. The writings of Sir Francis Palgrave are full of 
 passages of exquisite beauty and tenderness, wrung from him 
 by the events of a history which set before him the pursuits of 
 the hunter in their naked ugliness. I do not envy the feelings 
 of the sportsman who can read what Sir Francis says as to the 
 desolation of Hampshire, and the fate of William Rufus, without 
 a qualm as to the lawfulness of his sport. But perhaps these 
 witnesses may be despised, as the testimony of recluse students, 
 incapable of entering into a noble and manly sport. But I believe 
 that it would be possible to name more than one gallant soldier 
 who could both take and jeopard life when his duty bade him, but 
 who deemed it no sign of courage to rejoice in the needless 
 anguish of man or beast. And I will wind up with the 
 touching words words which I have lighted on since I began 
 this essay of one who, if a poet and a student, is also a 
 practised man of the world : 
 
 "The strife, the gushing blood, the mortal throe, 
 With scenic horrors filled that belt below, 
 And where the polished seats were round it raised, 
 Worse spectacle ! the pleased spectators gazed. 
 Such were the pastimes of the past ! Oh, shame, 
 
 Oh, infamy ! that men who drew the breath 
 Of freedom, and who shared the Roman name, 
 
 Should so corrupt their sports with pain and death. 
 
 " The pastimes of times past ? And what are thine, 
 Thou with thy gun or greyhound, rod and line ? 
 Pain, terror, mortal agonies, that scare 
 The heart in man, to brutes thou wilt not spare. 
 Are theirs less sad and real ? Pain in man 
 Bears the high mission of the flail and fan.
 
 PROTEST OF A POET. 85 
 
 In brutes 'tis purely piteous. God's command, 
 Submitting His mute creatures to our hand 
 For life and death, thou shalt not dare to plead ; 
 He bade thee kill them, not for sport, but need. 
 Then backward if thou cast reproachful looks 
 
 On sports bedarkening Custom erst allowed, 
 Expect from coming ages like rebukes 
 When day shall dawn on peacefuller woods and brooks, 
 
 And clear from vales thou troublest Custom's cloud." 
 
 But appeals like this are lost upon mere "sporting men : " 
 
 " The reeking, roaring hero of the chase, 
 I give him over as a desperate case. 
 And though the fox he follows may be tamed, 
 A mere fox-follower never is reclaimed." 
 
 We can only hope that the number may increase of country 
 gentlemen with hearts susceptible of pity, and with minds 
 cultured and capable of higher pursuits than sport : 
 
 " Detested sport, 
 
 That owes its pleasures to another's pain, 
 That feeds upon the sobs and dying shrieks 
 Of harmless nature, dumb, but yet endued 
 With eloquence, that agonies inspire 
 Of silent tears and heart-distending sighs ; 
 Vain tears, alas ! and sighs that never find 
 A corresponding tone in jovial souls." 
 
 I must not enlarge further on the various forms of needless 
 suffering, many of which will occur to different readers. Why 
 should dogs, which perspire through their mouths, be tortured 
 with close muzzles, enough to drive them to madness ? Why 
 should traps, even for vermin, be constructed so as to cause the 
 most crushing and prolonged agony? Why should stupid 
 Boards and greedy contractors be allowed to repair our roads 
 with metal that seems ingeniously suited to distress and injure 
 our horses ? The pages of the "Animal World" are constantly
 
 86 PROTEST OF A POET. 
 
 bringing to notice many such kinds of heedless and needless 
 cruelty. 
 
 But, after all, the sum of suffering is less than it was, and 
 moral and social improvement is increasing in relation to this 
 question. Fifty years ago, bull-baiting, with all its fiendish 
 accompaniments, was still common, and the feasts and fairs of 
 " merrie England " were scenes of cruelty and crime as 
 revolting as in any heathen land. These brutal sports had 
 still defenders in Parliament " in the days when George the 
 Fourth was king," and few protests were heard from the 
 pulpit or the press. What has been done during the past 
 half- century, and especially under the beneficent reign of 
 Queen Victoria, our next chapter will narrate.
 
 87 
 
 III. 
 
 MEANS OF PREVENTION, LEGAL AND EDUCATIONAL 
 
 WE have now referred to various kinds of sufferings to 
 which animals are exposed, although it is impossible to 
 enumerate all of them. Legislation has done much for 
 the removal of some causes of scandal, and the fear of punish- 
 ment operates to a certain extent in restraining from open cruelty. 
 The law does not, however, reach beyond flagrant cases, and must 
 always leave much wrong and suffering unnoticed and unre- 
 dressed. The law cannot reach the vast bulk of cases where 
 animals are used in the service of man, nor those where they are 
 domesticated, as pets or otherwise ; the treatment of animals in 
 such conditions must depend mainly on the care and good feeling 
 of their owners. It is by the education of the young, and by 
 the influence of public opinion, that in this, as in many other 
 social questions, the greatest good can be done. In all these 
 directions the lead is taken by the Royal Society for the Pre- 
 vention of Cruelty to Animals, which has branches in many 
 parts of the country, and the success of whose beneficent work 
 has led to similar societies being founded in other countries. 
 Every humane person will, in his own sphere, do what he can 
 to lessen suffering, but individual effort can do little, especially 
 in cases within the scope of legislation, compared with the 
 watchful care of an influential association which specially charges 
 itself with the protection of dumb animals, and employs trained 
 and experienced officers for th'is purpose. 
 
 Of the objects and operations of the Society we shall have to
 
 88 MEANS OF PREVENTION. 
 
 speak presently, but meanwhile a brief statement of the origin 
 and history of British legislation on the subject of cruelty to 
 animals will be useful. 
 
 The horrible scenes and cruelty and rice connected with bull- 
 baiting and other savage spectacles, as well as the sufferings 
 witnessed in the more ordinary transactions of life, having com- 
 pelled the notice of public men, Lord Erskine, in 1809, 
 introduced a Bill into the House of Lords, where it was carried 
 without a division, but was rejected in the House of Commons. 
 Committees of inquiry were, however, from time to time ap- 
 pointed ; and at length, in 1824, Mr. Martin, of Galway, whose 
 exertions in this matter deserve to be remembered with honour, 
 succeeded in carrying a general measure. Mr. Wilberforce was 
 one of his chief associates and supporters. In 1835, in conse- 
 quence of the urgent suggestions in the Report of^an influential 
 committee of inquiry, a more effective measure was passed, 
 which, with some amendments and additional enactments, is now 
 the law of the land. According to this law penalties are enforced 
 against persons convicted of offences enumerated in the Act. 
 
 The benefits of legislation have been incalculable, and none of 
 the evils or inconveniences predicted by its opponents have been 
 verified. It was said, as is usual on all such occasions, that you 
 cannot make men merciful or religious by Act of Parliament. 
 True, but the law can prevent much actual suffering and wrong- 
 It was said that it would be impossible to decide what was 
 cruelty and what was not ; to distinguish, for instance, between 
 blows necessary and justifiable when beasts are lazy and re- 
 fractory, or even blows of hasty temper, and deliberate cold- 
 blooded cruelty. Lord Erskine had already replied to this 
 objection in showing that no difficulty of the kind occurred in 
 regard to the treatment of apprentices : " To distinguish the 
 severest discipline, for enforcing activity and commanding
 
 DEBATES IN PARLIAMENT. 89 
 
 obedience in such dependents, from brutal ferocity and cruelty, 
 never yet puzzled a judge or jury never, at least, in my long 
 experience." It was also said that the provision by which 
 one-half of the penalties should go to informers must multiply 
 frivolous and vexatious prosecutions. So far from this being 
 the case, it is of the rarest occurrence that any difficulty arises 
 about the decisions. It was mentioned in one of the reports of the 
 Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the officers em- 
 ployed by which have greatly assisted in carrying out the benefi- 
 cent designs of the law, that in the year preceding that report, in 
 nearly three hundred prosecutions, the offenders had in every 
 instance been convicted. It was also objected that it would be 
 unjust to deprive the poor of their amusements, while no attempt 
 was made to interfere with the equally cruel amusements of the 
 rich. " This bill," said Mr. Windham, upon one occasion, 
 " instead of being called a bill for preventing cruelty to 
 animals, should be entitled a bill for harassing and oppressing 
 certain classes among the lower orders of the people." Mr. 
 Martin exposed the true motive of this argument : " Gentlemen 
 apprehended that they rose above vulgar prejudices, and were 
 great philosophers, when they maintained that the lower classes 
 were entitled to their own amusements. But this opinion, so 
 far from being philosophic and philanthropic, was founded on 
 an unworthy motive. It arose from a contempt for the lower 
 class of people, and was so much as to say, ' Poor creatures, let 
 them alone, they have few amusements, let them enjoy them.' ' 
 The following entry to the same effect, appears in Mr. Wilber- 
 force's Diary : " Went to the House for Martin's Bill on Cruelty 
 to Animals. It is opposed on the ground of the rich having 
 their own amusements, and that it would be hard to rob the 
 poor of theirs .... a most fallacious argument, and one which 
 has its root in contempt for the poor." 
 
 G
 
 00 MEANS OF PREVENTION. 
 
 Another objection was, that such legislation must necessarily 
 be limited and partial in its application. " The argument," 
 replied Mr. Martin, " that by this law we have not done all that 
 ought to be done, was no answer to the claim to do as 
 much as was possible at the moment, any more than telling a 
 man who attempted to save one hundred out of eight hundred 
 persons on board a sinking ship, that his being unable to pre- 
 serve all was a sufficient reason to abstain from attempting to 
 rescue any." 
 
 Such were the principal arguments by which, along with 
 much vituperation and ridicule, it was attempted to bear down 
 a humane design, the simple object of which was to aid in sup- 
 pressing vice, and to lessen the sum of misery in the world. 
 There are several cruel amusements and practices at present 
 openly encouraged and defended, that ought as soon as possible 
 to be added to those already denounced as illegal ; and when, in 
 regard to these, further enactments may be demanded, the sameor 
 similar objections will probably be urged. Looking back to the 
 recorded debates upon the question, it will be found that the men 
 most conspicuous in their opposition to these measures, uniformly 
 set themselves against every measure of an enlightened, or liberal, 
 or benevolent nature. They were the defenders of the slave 
 trade, for example, and on the same ground, that legislation 
 should not interfere with "the rights of property" and with " the 
 liberty of the subject" liberty meaning licence to do wrong. 
 
 In educating public opinion, and in preparing thus for 
 rffjctive legislation, the most valuable help has been given by 
 the (now Royal) Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Ani- 
 mals. Beginning halt' a century ago, on a small scale, it has 
 gradually risen in influence and in public favour. 
 
 At the Jubilee Meeting in 1874, Mr. Colam, the Secretary of
 
 JUBILEE OF R.S.P.C.A. 91 
 
 the Society, in introducing the usual annual report, contrasted 
 the state of public opinion now with what it had been fifty 
 years ago. " In reviewing the history of this Association from 
 the date of its foundation, June 16th, 1824, your Committee 
 earnestly call your attention not only to the improvement in the 
 treatment of animals, but to the present universal approval of 
 your principles. Fifty years ago, the worst forms of cruelty 
 to animals were openly perpetrated in our streets and on 
 our highways without provoking general indignation, and even 
 without awaking general commiseration in the minds of eye- 
 witnesses. Fifty years ago the pioneers of your righteous 
 cause, instead of receiving praise, were subjected to ridicule 
 and odium. Assembled now in this magnificent hall, sur- 
 rounded by representatives of kindred societies, who have 
 travelled from all parts of the world in order to take part in 
 the proceedings of to-day ; encouraged by a favourable public 
 opinion ; and enjoying the most gracious and distinguished 
 patronage which can be bestowed on a charitable community, 
 your Committee are devoutly sensible of the blessings which 
 have been vouchsafed to their labours of love ; and they cannot, 
 therefore, be restrained in making this public acknowledgment 
 and record of their heart-felt gratitude to the Father of all 
 mercies." 
 
 The history of a Society carried on in this spirit, and with so 
 excellent an object, could hardly fail to be a record of progress 
 and success. The courage and energy, the self-denial and 
 patience of the pioneers and early workers have been amply 
 rewarded. There were, from the first, honoured names in the 
 reports, Erskine, Martin, Burdett, Buxton, Lushiugton, Fry, 
 Gurney, Wilberforce but the general interest in the cause was 
 of slow and gradual growth. The early support given to the 
 Society by Her Majesty the Queen haa been of immense benefit
 
 92 MEANS OF PREVENTION. 
 
 in securing public attention. Forty years ago, while Princess 
 Victoria, she allowed her name to appear at the head of its 
 patrons, and in 1840 conferred the right of bearing the style 
 and title of a Royal Society. This influence was a substantial 
 help to a cause which had been exposed to ridicule and retarded 
 by prejudice. The Society now has a long list of royal and 
 noble patrons and office-bearers, and a vast number of zealous 
 and wealthy supporters, and is cheered on its work by the 
 approval of public opinion. 
 
 It was consistent with her earliest sympathies and life-long 
 countenance that the Queen should feel interested in the Society's 
 Jubilee Meeting; and consequently, as soon as she had learned 
 the date of such festival, she projected a mode of testifying her 
 regard towards its objects which was felt to be eminently grace- 
 ful, encouraging, and useful ; for it is no less than a royal 
 message ordered to be read to thousands of her subjects at the 
 meeting, and addressed to all her people. It need not be won- 
 dered at that the letter elicited three cheers for Her Majesty 
 as soon as it was read at the meeting ; for its spirit and force 
 are not only admirable, but calculated to awake the best feelings 
 in the hearts of Englishmen, and to make them proud of their 
 noble Queen. 
 
 "Buckingham Palace, June 19, 1874. 
 
 " MY DEAR LORD, The Queen has commanded me to address 
 you as President of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty 
 to Animals, on the occasion of the assemblage in this country 
 of the foreign delegates connected with similar associations, and 
 of the jubilee of the Society, to request you to give expression 
 publicly of Her Majesty's warm interest in the success of the 
 efforts which are being made here and abroad for the purpose 
 of diminishing the cruelties practised on dumb animals. The 
 Queen hears and reads with horror of the sufferings which the
 
 QUEEN VICTORIA'S LETTER. 93 
 
 brute creation often undergo from the thoughtlessness of the 
 ignorant, and she fears also sometimes from experiments in the 
 pursuit of science. For the removal of the former the Queen 
 trusts much to the progress of education ; and in regard to the 
 pursuit of science, she hopes that the entire advantage of those 
 anaesthetic discoveries from which man lias derived so much 
 benefit himself, in the alleviation of suffering, may be fully 
 extended to the lower animals. Her Majesty rejoices that the 
 Society awakens the interest of the young by the presentation 
 of prizes for essays connected with the subject, and hears with 
 gratification that her son and daughter-in-law show their in- 
 terest and sympathy by presenting those prizes at your meeting. 
 Her Majesty desires me to announce a donation of one hundred 
 guineas towards the funds of the Society. 
 
 " I am, my dear Lord, very faithfully yours, 
 
 "T. M. BlDDULPH. 
 
 " The Earl of Harrowby, KG., &c." 
 
 The operations of the Society and the application of the funds 
 placed at its disposal may be referred to three great points : 
 
 1. The prosecution of offenders. 
 
 2. The education and training of the young. 
 
 3. The influence of public opinion, through the pulpit and 
 the platform, the newspaper press and general literature. 
 Since the institution of the Society the number of prosecu- 
 tions at the instance and at the cost of the Society have 
 increased every year. It was feared that there might be many 
 frivolous and vexatious charges, an objection made from the 
 first against legislating on the question. So far from this being 
 the case, it is the rarest occurrence that any difficulty arises 
 about the decision. In the various reports of the Society, 
 we find that of hundreds of prosecutions during each year,
 
 94 MEANS OF PREVENTION. 
 
 the vast majority of offenders had been convicted. Very 
 judicious advice is given on this matter in the papers circu- 
 lated by the Society throughout the country, recommending 
 personal appeal and remonstrance, and only in case of obstinate 
 and gross cruelty the adoption of severer measures. Even when 
 prosecution is resolved upon, the case is reported to the com- 
 mittee in London, by whom the authorisation is given to proceed 
 before a magistrate. The careful and watchful supervision of 
 the Society, which extends to all its operations, may be seen in 
 the printed notices to their officers. Any town or district 
 sending 100 annually to the parent society has the privilege 
 of a special officer, well fitted for the service, in the locality. 
 
 It is very gratifying to find that branches of the parent 
 society are being formed in all parts of the country, and in large 
 towns special officers, trained to their duties, are attached to 
 these local societies. In the " Animal World," the monthly 
 organ of the Society, lists of these associations and of the office- 
 bearers are frequently published. The good work is also 
 carried on by societies in many foreign countries, reports of 
 which appeared in the proceedings of the International Con- 
 gress, the sixth of a series, held in London, this one being in 
 1874, at the time of the Jubilee Meeting of the parent society. 
 
 We are glad to observe the ground taken up in the formation of 
 these branch societies, the subject being regarded as a moral obli- 
 gation, and not simply as a matter of law and police. For example, 
 at one of the most recently reported meetings, at Exeter, the 
 proceedings were quite in this tone. The meeting was held in 
 the spring of 1875 for reorganising a local branch. The mayor, 
 Mr. H. C. Lloyd, presided, and said that the Guildhall could not 
 be granted for any worthier purpose. The mayor was supported 
 by the high sheriff, and by many of the leading notables of the 
 city and county, both ecclesiastics and laymen. Among the
 
 THE BARON KSS BUKDETT COUTTS. 9- r > 
 
 speakers at the meeting was the Baroness Burdett Coutts, wh >, 
 in referring to the Bishop of Exeter as president of the local 
 branch, said that although the bishop had laborious and inces- 
 sant calls of duty in his office, he had not refused this addi- 
 tional demand on his time and attention, "considering the 
 dumb animals," the Baroness said, " as part of his diocese, and 
 feeling that they had a claim on his kindly care and pastoral 
 attention." This was said with genial humour, and the meeting 
 warmly responded when the speaker added, that " in England, 
 Christianity has no doubt exercised its beneficent influence upon 
 the treatment of animals, and that it is by carrying out the pre- 
 cepts of Christianity we shall ultimately eradicate this and every 
 other form of evil. Cruelty is the same evil principle whether ex- 
 hibited towards animals or towards our fellow-creatures, as in 
 the slave trade. Both spring from the same germ of cruelty 
 and greed of gain, and Christianity alone can counteract these 
 evils." 
 
 Where the cause of humanity is thus associated with the 
 principles of morality and religion, the work is sure to prosper. 
 In accordance with these sentiments, we note with pleasure that, 
 in a pastoral letter issued by an Episcopal Convention, held in 
 1874, at New York, the following passage occurs: "The 
 Christian soul is sensitive to the love of God, and loves all 
 things in Him, and for His sake. It loves even the dumb 
 creatures He has made, because He condescends to be the God of 
 the sparrow, and considered the very cattle that were at Nineveh. 
 Gentleness to the animals which serve us, protection to the de- 
 pendent flock which typifies the chosen people of God, pity for 
 the callow brood in the fragile nest, are lessons which men of 
 love are not ashamed to impress upon themselves and upon 
 their children." 
 
 It is under the Act 12 and ]-\ Victoria, cap. 9'2, that the
 
 96 MEANS OF PREVENTION. 
 
 legal penalties for cruelty to animals are chiefly enforced. There 
 are also some minor enactments against particular forms of ill- 
 treatment of animals. 
 
 I have before me a large number of reports of convictions, 
 obtained chiefly through the prosecutions of the Society, and 
 they cover a wide and varied range of such offences. A selected 
 list of these convictions, conspicuously posted in markets, near 
 railway stations, police offices, and other public places, would be 
 useful both as a warning against manifest forms of cruelty, and 
 for information as to offences which arc now often regarded with 
 indifference. A farmer at Leyburn was fined 7 12s. for 
 sawing off close to the head the horns of some Irish heifers, a 
 member of the Council of the Royal Veterinary College having 
 given evidence as to the cruelty of the practice. The fine would 
 have been larger, but it was the first conviction in England, 
 though the practice was stated to be not uncommon in Scotland. 
 A bird fancier was sentenced to fourteen days' imprisonment 
 with hard labour for putting out the eyes of a chaffinch to im- 
 prove its singing. 
 
 Some of the convictions are for offences not involving cruelty 
 in the ordinary sense of the word, as implying intentional 
 causing of pain or torturing, but the Act is directed equally 
 against practices where suffering is caused through carelessness 
 or neglect. Thus, at the Middlesex Sessions, a previous con- 
 viction by a magistrate, Mr. D'Ej'ncourt , for " overstocking " a 
 cow, was on appeal confirmed ; the Assistant Judge, Sir William 
 Bodkin, saying that every magistrate on the Bench concurred 
 in confirming the conviction. The case is worth citing as an 
 example of inhumanity through neglect, by which offenders 
 render themselves liable to prosecution. The Sanitary Inspector 
 of Xewgate Market said he was in the Metropolitan Cattle 
 Market with two other officers, and his attention was directed to
 
 LEGAL ENACTMENTS AND PENALTIES. 97 
 
 a cow that was standing in one of the market alleys, apparently 
 in great pain, moaning and trampling about. He could see it 
 had very recently calved, probably not more than three or four 
 hours. He saw milk on the ground, and dropping from the 
 teats. The udder was much distended, and she could not stand 
 still. Professor Spooner, Principal of the Royal Yeterinary 
 College, said he thought, from the evidence, the cow had been 
 treated very improperly and cruelly. The animal was in great 
 pain from the accumulation of milk. The counsel for the 
 appellant contended that nothing had been done inconsistent 
 with humanity, and that what had been complained of was the 
 common practice. The judge, in his decision, said that the 
 practice was very reprehensible, though, he acquitted the 
 appellant of intentional cruelty. He concluded with the re- 
 mark thnt the Bench considered they were bound to assist the 
 Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in 
 putting a stop to it. 
 
 These examples I have cited to show that many forms of 
 inhumanity, arising from ignorance or thoughtlessness, expose 
 the offenders to legal penalties. For instance, many sportsmen 
 and dealers in small birds may not be aware that any person killing, 
 wounding, or taking any wild bird named in the Act 85 and 36 
 Victoria, cap. 28, " for the protection of wild birds during the 
 breeding season," from the 15th day of March to the 1st of 
 August, or exposing or offering for sale such birds, is liable to 
 be proceeded against and punished. But the greatest number 
 of convictions are for brutal or wanton cruelty, where no defence 
 is offered. The number would be soon diminished if those who 
 observe them would take the trouble to make the charge and to 
 appear as witnesses. When Mr. Richard Martin was in London 
 during the sittings of Parliament, he never allowed a case of 
 cruelty observed by him to pass unchallenged. The officers of
 
 98 MEANS OF PREVENTION. 
 
 the Society are very active and watchful, but they have a vast, 
 field to oversee in the metropolis, and the public must be appealed 
 to for co-operation in preventing or punishing cruelty. By 
 communicating with the secretary, every help will be given in 
 points of doubt or difficulty, and every exertion made to bring 
 offenders to justice, with as little trouble as possible to prosecu- 
 tors or witnesses. 
 
 By existing statutes the protection of law is afforded only to 
 domesticated animals mentioned in the Acts ; but there is no 
 reason why wild animals should not be included in the statutes. 
 Cases have often occurred of the most brutal cruelty towards 
 animals not enumerated in the existing Acts, and the offenders 
 have escaped punishment. A lad, who had covered some rats 
 with turpentine and set fire to it, was lately discharged at a 
 police court because rats are vermin, and "wild animals" not 
 enumerated in the Acts against cruelty. It might very safely 
 be left to magistrates to decide whether wanton cruelty has 
 been inflicted, with the right to inflict punishment whatever the 
 animal may be that has been the victim of the cruelty. The fact 
 of their being "vermin," or any kind of " wild animal," should 
 not leave them without protection from heartless cruelty, while 
 admitting the right to destroy them. An amendment of existing 
 Acts is called for, to the extent of rendering any one liable to 
 punishment for wanton cruelty upon any animal, whether 
 " wild" or "domesticated." The evil result is the same, what- 
 ever living creature is wantonly tortured. 
 
 There is, indeed, an Act for the Protection of Wild Birds (a 
 large number of which are enumerated), but only during the 
 breeding season. The passing of this law has been due as much 
 to the love of natural history as to the love of humanity. By 
 this Act, any person who shall kill, wound, or take any wild 
 bird named in a list appended, or shall expose or offer for
 
 BIRD-CATCHERS AND SPARROW CLUBS. 99 
 
 sale any such wild bird recently killed, wounded, or taken 
 between the 15th day of March and the 1st day of August in 
 any year, will be liable to be proceeded against and punished 
 under 35 and 36 Victoria, cap. 78, entitled " An Act for the 
 Protection of certain Wild Birds during the Breeding Season." 
 It would be a good thing if some check could be put upon the 
 destructive proceedings, both of sportsmen and birdcatchers, at 
 all seasons of the year, as well as breeding time. Some 
 latitude must be given, but the wholesale raids, upon singing 
 birds especially, grieve every lover of nature. For the sake of 
 sale as cage birds it is bad enough, but we have no patience 
 with those who encourage the capture of such birds for gluttony. 
 A friend says he never sees the strings of larks and other loved 
 birds hung in front of the dealers' shops, without wishing the 
 catchers a good flogging and the consumers a chronic indigestion. 
 
 What shall we say also of the stupid as well as barbarous 
 practices of what are called "sparrow clubs," which wage war not 
 on sparrows only, but all small birds that come in the way ? 
 The children in our country schools must be taught better, and 
 told how useful the birds are to the gardeners, and to the 
 farmers also. But the grown-up members of sparrow clubs are 
 seldom capable of being argued with, though discussions in 
 " Farmers' Clubs," reported in local papers, might be of some 
 use. The most effective appeals as yet have appeared in the 
 pages of the kindly as well as witty journal, "Punch." 
 
 " The ignorance of natural history disgracing the rustics 
 who till the soil of certain parts of England is just equal to the 
 greatness of their opportunities for acquiring a knowledge of it. 
 Many of them believe that a cuckoo changes into a sparrow- 
 hawk, that the slowworm and even the stone-loach are venomous, 
 and that a horsehair put into a pond gets animated and becomes 
 a worm. Subjoined, from the 'East Sussex Gazette,' is an
 
 100 MEANS OF PREVENTION. 
 
 illustration of this boorish ignorance which the clowns of a 
 Boeotia in the South of England rejoice in : ' SPARROW CLUB. 
 On the 2nd inst. the members of the Sparrow Club held their 
 
 annual meeting at the S Arms Inn, when twenty-three 
 
 sat down to an excellent dinner. After the removal of the cloth 
 the accounts were examined, and the chairman announced that 
 10,807 sparrows and other heads had been sent in during the 
 year, that being about 900 more than last year, and about 3,000 
 more than the year previous, showing clearly that there is no 
 scarcity of birds yet, and it was agreed to carry the club on 
 another year, in spite of " Punch," " or any other man." 
 
 " Are there no local gentry about S who take enough 
 
 interest in their tenants to be desirous of restraining them from 
 doing themselves damage, for want of knowing better than to 
 attempt the extermination of the little birds Y If there are, 
 they should organise some method of imparting the requisite 
 instruction to such louts as those who dined the other day at 
 
 the S Arms, to celebrate the destruction of 10,807 sparrows 
 
 and other small birds which they had caused during the past 
 year. It would be a charity to beat, if possible, into the heads 
 of these boobies a calculation of the number of caterpillars and 
 grubs whose increase they must have occasioned by that stupid 
 impolicy. A Clodhoppers' Institution, whereat lectures on 
 
 ornithology could be delivered, might be established at S 
 
 [I suppress the name for the sake of the clergymen and local 
 gentry who may be supposed to know better], with some 
 advantage, if the S bumpkins were capable of understand- 
 ing any lectures. What, however, would probably answer the 
 purpose in view better, would be an opposition to the Sparrow 
 Club, under the name of a Caterpillar Club, established to 
 promote the extirpation of mischievous insects by preserving the 
 sparrows, and finches, and feathered suugsters, of which the
 
 HELP OF THE PRESS. 101 
 
 massacre is encouraged by a society of blockheads. The chaw- 
 bacons understand eating and drinking, if not much else, and 
 under the influence of a good dinner they might be persuaded 
 to let the little birds live and eat up the vermin." 
 
 It may be here remarked that the public press has of late 
 years given the warmest encouragement and support, not only 
 to the proceedings of the Society, but to the cause of humanity 
 to animals in general. It was not always so, and some of us 
 remember the ridicule and abuse poured on Mr. Martin, and other 
 humane men, in the newspapers. As the guide as well as the 
 exponent of public opinion, this is a welcome change in the 
 press. The " Spectator " has done special good service. The 
 " Times," " Telegraph," " Daily News," " Standard," and in- 
 deed all the press, with the exception of the lowest " sporting 
 papers," have aided the cause. Even the " Saturday Review," 
 where a genial and kindly view of any subject is rarely taken, 
 thus wrote on the occasion of the Society's Jubilee: 
 
 " The history of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to 
 Animals, which has been celebrating its fiftieth anniversary, 
 marks a satisfactory advance in an important branch of public 
 morality. It was in 1822 that, in consequence of Mr. Martin, 
 the idea that it was an offence to treat a domestic animal with 
 wanton cruelty first received legislative sanction, and two years 
 later this Society was established. Since then, not only have 
 bull-baiting, cock-fighting, badger-baiting, and other barbarous 
 sports been prohibited by law, but a great change has also taken 
 place in the way of thinking about animals generally. When 
 an Italian peasant is remonstrated with for ill-using his cattle, 
 he replies that they are not Christians, and therefore it does not 
 matter ; and very similar ideas prevailed in our own country on 
 the subject when the Society began its operations. As the 
 Queen remarks in her letter to Lord Harrowby, cruelty is
 
 102 MEANS OF PREVENTION. 
 
 frequently due to ignorance and thoughtlessness, and the spread 
 of education has had a natural tendency to make people more 
 humane and sensitive. A dull, stupid fellow knows from his 
 own sensations when he receives a kick or a blow that it hurts 
 him, but it requires an effort of imagination to understand that 
 animals also suffer from brutal usage. When people once begin 
 to think whether animals are in pain, they are in a fair way to 
 become more humane in their treatment of them ; and the 
 Society for the Prevention of Cruelty has done good work both 
 in stimulating this course of reflection, and in getting its gradual 
 developments embodied in the law of the country. Martin's 
 Act has been repeatedly amended, the slaughter of horses has 
 been brought within legislative regulation, dogs are no longer 
 allowed to be used as beasts of burden or draught, and food and 
 drink are required to be supplied to cattle on a long railway 
 journey. In the course of its career the Society has procured 
 the conviction of some twenty-four thousand persons ; and the 
 knowledge that its officers are prepared to take proceedings in 
 regard to all cases of cruelty which come under their own 
 observation or which are reported to them, has a salutary effect 
 on those who are only to be influenced by fear of punishment. 
 The making of cruelty to animals a criminal offence has also 
 made it disgraceful, and people are ashamed to be detected in 
 the commission of acts of a degrading character. In this way a 
 penal law may be useful, not merely in securing the punish- 
 ment of offenders, but in attaching a stigma to particulur 
 offences. The fines which are usually inflicted for cruelty to 
 animals are penalties of a very moderate kind, which would 
 probably have little effect in themselves apart from the oppro- 
 brium with which they are associated. Some idea of the range 
 of the operations of the Society may be gathered from the list 
 of prosecutions for a month. In April last, for example, there
 
 THE u SATURDAY REVIEW." 103 
 
 were fortj'-one convictions for neglecting to supply food and 
 water to animals on the railway. There were two cases of 
 overcrowding pigs, ten of overloading horses, and one of con- 
 veying fowls in a cruel manner. Any one who has observed 
 how fowls are usually conveyed, squeezed together into the 
 smallest possible compass, as if they were rags or vegetables, or 
 some other inanimate object, will probably be surprised that 
 there should be only a single conviction under this head ; but 
 the officers of the Society were perhaps fully occupied in the 
 protection of more imposing animals. There were also a 
 hundred and thirty-five convictions for ill-treating horses ; 
 twenty-three cases of ill-treating donkeys and inules, and four 
 cases in which the victims were oxen and cows. 
 
 " One can imagine the surprised bewilderment with which 
 any one who had lived in the last or the beginning of the 
 present century, would be filled on revisiting the earth, to find 
 all this tender and scrupulous care bestowed on the brute 
 creation, and to learn that a man might actually be sent to prison 
 for ill-using animals, which used to be regarded as being as 
 much his possession to do what he liked with as his turnips or 
 potatoes. Lord Harrowby, the president of the Society of which 
 we are speaking, remembered the ridicule and contumely to 
 which the brave Irish gentleman who first took up the question 
 in earnest was subjected, and had heard a respected and accom- 
 plished member of the House of Commons, who was supposed to 
 be an admirable representative of an English gentleman 
 Windham, we presume, is here referred to defending the 
 practice of baiting bulls in his place in Parliament. It should 
 be remembered that, if humanity to animals is a comparatively 
 recent fashion, it was not till 1840 that the use of climbing boys 
 to sweep chimneys was prohibited by law. It will be found, 
 indeed, that consideration for animals and consideration for one's
 
 104 MEANS OF PREVENTION. 
 
 own kind go pretty much together. Thoughtfulness about 
 others, whether animals or men, is the origin of a humane dis- 
 position. The great thing is to get people to think what is 
 likely to be the effect of their acts on creatures which share their 
 own capacity for physical agony ; and when once this habit of 
 thought is established, a desire to spare the poor animals as 
 much as possible is pretty sure to follow. It is in cultivating 
 and encouraging this habit of mind that the Society for the 
 Prevention of Cruelty to Animals finds its most useful function. 
 The enforcement of the law and the punishment of the offenders 
 are no doubt necessary and important operations in their way ; 
 but, after all, the number of cases of cruelty which can be dealt 
 with in this way is comparatively few. Outrageous public 
 cruelty may thus be laid hold of ; but then cruelty of this sort 
 is by no means common. It is the regular every-day treatment 
 of animals on which their happiness or misery chiefly depends, 
 and the only effectual way to secure that this treatment shall be 
 generally kind and considerate, is to cultivate a particular bent 
 and habit of mind on the subject." 
 
 For the prevention of some kinds of cruelty to animals it is 
 now universally admitted that the Legislature should interfere, 
 and there is a call for more stringent enactments than are yet 
 on the Statute Book. To give effect to these laws, private 
 individuals ought to lend their aid, and not leave all to be done 
 by official prosecutors. Those who witness acts of cruelty 
 should not " pass by, on the other side," but interfere when 
 interference might be useful, or at least they should be willing 
 to give information and bear testimony against offenders. It is 
 the duty of every humane person, as he has opportunity, 
 whether by personal effort or by aiding that Society, to pre- 
 vent wrong being done to helpless creatures. Masters and 
 employers should see that their servants use animals well.
 
 COWPER AND HOGARTH. 105 
 
 Those who can speak to the public, either from the pulpit or 
 through the press, should lift up their voices in behalf of the 
 dumb. But all these external influences, legal penalties, 
 solemn warnings, earnest pleadings while useful to some ex- 
 tent, have very small effect compared with what the wider 
 diffusion of a spirit of humanity would secure. This can bo 
 attained only by the education and training of the young. 
 Hence the importance of making kindness to animals a special 
 department of instruction in schools, and the earlier in life this 
 is begun the better. 
 
 " The spring- time of our years 
 Is soon dishonoured and defiled in most 
 By budding ills, that ask a prudent hand 
 To check them ; and, alas ! none sooner shoots, 
 If unrestrained, into luxurious growth, 
 Than cruelty, most devilish of them all." Cowper. 
 
 There is true philosophy and true knowledge of human nature 
 in these lines of the poet. The seeds of selfishness and anger 
 and cruelty are not put into the young heart by any external 
 agency, nor are they carried thither by chance, but they are 
 indigenous there, weeds of native growth, and in that congenial 
 soil readily expand to the crimes by which human nature is 
 disgraced. 
 
 A shrewd observer of human nature, the painter Hogarth, 
 has illustrated the fact of " the boy being father of the man," 
 with great fidelity and force, in his pictures of " The Four Stages 
 of Cruelty." A boy begins his career by tormenting animals, 
 and after he has become hardened by repeated acts of barbarity, 
 he at length commits murder, and suffers an ignominious death. 
 The transitions are natural, and unless some superior power 
 interfere to check the early tendency to cruelty, to awaken the 
 conscience, and arrest the degeneracy of the mind, the gradation 
 
 H
 
 106 MEANS OF PEEVENTION. 
 
 of crime is inevitable. The Roman emperor who in his child- 
 hood took delight in tormenting and killing flies, afterwards 
 found pleasure in persecuting and committing barbarities on his 
 subjects. There may not in all be the same extent of degradation 
 of character, but the tendency is always the same, if the seeds 
 of cruelty are not early checked, and the seeds of kindness and 
 mercy are not early sown and cultivated. 
 
 Not only in infant schools, but in classes for all ages, special 
 attention should be given to inculcating humanity to animals. 
 I do not mean that there should be separate teaching at a 
 separate hour for this, but a due share of the teacher's time and 
 care should be bestowed on this department. The principals of 
 training schools have the greatest influence in their hands to 
 effect this desirable object. To provide books or give advice is 
 not enough, if the teachers do not feel the value of such train- 
 ing. There is a common saying that " the schoolmaster makes 
 the school," and it is true in this special field of instruction. If 
 the teacher has no kindly feeling towards animals, and takes no 
 interest in their life and habits, he will impart no interest to the 
 pupils under his care. I would, therefore, strongly urge that 
 in our training schools very special attention should be given 
 to this subject. Every teacher, male or female, ought to have 
 some training in natural history, and no certificate should be 
 granted without an examination in this department. There is 
 no need of much technical or scientific knowledge, but a certain 
 amount of intelligent and practical acquaintance with natural 
 history ought to be required, and clear instruction given as to 
 the necessity for attending to the subject of humanity to ani- 
 mals as an important part of every teacher's duties. I earnestly 
 commend this to the notice of the heads of training colleges, 
 and to those by whom masters and teachers are appointed. 
 
 JUany pleasing instances might be given of the effects of such
 
 HUMANITY TAUGHT IN SCHOOLS. 107 
 
 training on the feelings and conduct of the pupils in the schools 
 where it has been tried. Two of the children attending an 
 infant school at Edinburgh, brothers, about five and four years of 
 age, coming in late one morning, were to go to their seats 
 without censure if they could give an account of what they had 
 been doing, which should be declared satisfactory by the whole 
 school, who were to decide. They stated, separately, that they 
 had been watching the proceedings of a large caterpillar, and 
 noticing the different positions of its body as it crossed their 
 path that it was now straight or horizontal, then bent, then 
 upright or perpendicular, and finally sloping up when it 
 escaped into a tree. The master asked them, abruptly, " Why 
 did you not kill it?" The children stared. " Could you have 
 killed it ?" asked the teacher. " Yes, but that would have been 
 cruel and naughty, and a sin against God." The little moralists 
 were acquitted by acclamation. Here was a simple lesson 
 never to be forgotten in that school. 
 
 Mrs. Manby, the mistress of the National School at Horseley 
 Heath, Staffordshire, having directed her attention to this 
 subject, her labours were crowned with abundant success. The 
 birds built their nests, and reared their young unmolested, 
 on the walls of the school ; nay, while the classes were em- 
 ployed the happy creatures used to come among them, to pick 
 up the crumbs which the admiring children had thrown for 
 them. If, by chance, a butterfly entered this asylum of mercy, 
 the boys eagerly but gently strove (contrary to the usual pro- 
 pensity of children) which should with the greatest care set it 
 at liberty. As a contrast to this, some children from a neigh- 
 bouring school, who once were there before they were observed, 
 plundered one of the nests, and threw the naked helpless young 
 ones about the room, in sport ! 
 
 It was stated many years ago, that of seven thousand children
 
 108 MEANS OF PREVENTION. 
 
 who had at that time been educated in the school in the Borough 
 Road by Mr. Lancaster, where humanity to animals was specially 
 inculcated, at the date of the report in which the fact is stated, 
 not one had been accused of a criminal offence in any court. 
 So many instances of a similar nature could be added, that we 
 cannot but consider the encouragement of this special instruc- 
 tion as an object of national importance ; and we therefore hope 
 that in all public schools special attention should be directed to 
 this matter. 
 
 The celebrated poet and essayist, Pope, wrote an admirable 
 paper on cruelty to animals in the " Guardian,"" in which, 
 among other schemes, he proposes the following : " I fancy/' he 
 says, " some advantage might be taken of the common notion 
 that it is ominous or unlucky to destroy some kinds of birds, as 
 swallows or martens. This opinion might probably arise from 
 the confidence these birds place in us by breeding under our 
 roofs ; so that it is a kind of violation of the laws of hospitality 
 to murder them. As for robin-redbreasts, in particular, it is 
 not improbable that they owe their security to the old ballad of 
 ' The Babes in the Wood.' However it may be, I do not know why 
 this prejudice, well improved, and carried as far as it would go, 
 might not be made to conduce to the preservation of many in- 
 nocent creatures, which are now exposed to all the wantonness 
 of an ignorant barbarity." This was a very benevolent pro- 
 posal of Mr. Pope, but there is no need of giving sanction to 
 errors or superstition even for so good an object. We do not 
 require such aid. Lessons founded on the wonderful habits and 
 instincts of animals, and on the benefits, direct and indirect, 
 which man derives from them, are always sure of exciting kindly 
 feelings. The children thus instructed are free from silly pre- 
 judices so common against many animals, and are evidently 
 impressed with a feeling of benevolent regard to all animated
 
 A FRENCH SCHOOLMASTER. 109 
 
 nature. The mode in which a schoolmaster can by his personal 
 influence promote among his scholars the growth of a feeling 
 of kindness towards animals is described by a Frenchman, M. 
 de Sailly, in a paper which has been published by the English 
 Society's Committee, and which ought to be read by all school- 
 masters. "I have always," says M. de Sailly, "in my forty- 
 six years' experience as a schoolmaster, tried to teach children 
 habits of kindness to animals. I well know that early impres- 
 sions are never forgotten, and a child that is taught humanity 
 to animals will, in later years, learn to love his fellow-men. I 
 have, therefore, taken pains to develop the affections of the 
 children under my care, and to sow the fruitful seeds of kind- 
 ness, gentleness, and justice towards domestic animals, which 
 are and always will be the farmer's chief wealth; and also 
 towards others, which, although in a wild state, are no less useful 
 to agriculture, though ignorantly treated as enemies." 
 
 The methods by which such instruction may be communi- 
 cated and such sentiments encouraged are very various, and 
 must be left to the good sense and good feeling of the parent 
 or teacher. One remark only seems necessary. It is far more 
 important in the very young to attend to the formation of 
 character than the impartation of knowledge, and instead of 
 cramming the children with lessons only meant for the memory 
 and the head, a due share of time should be given to subjects 
 which interest the feelings and improve the heart. It is not 
 merely for the sake of the lower animals that we say this, but 
 for the highest advantages of the pupils. As the effects of 
 cruelty are twofold hurtful to the poor victims and hurtful to 
 those who inflict the injury, so the effects of benevolence are 
 twofold preventing suffering, and improving the hearts of those 
 who show kindness. As our greatest poet says, 
 
 "Mercy is twice blessed; 
 It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes."
 
 110 MEANS OF PREVENTION. 
 
 Apart, then, from the immediate and direct good in lessening 
 the sufferings of the animal creation, the healthful exercise of 
 the benevolent affections, in a field so boundless, and where some 
 objects are always within reach, cannot fail to be productive of 
 much good, and to prevent much evil in life. For the law of 
 the human mind upon which we work in this department of 
 tuition and training, is the same benevolence, or love, which is 
 the fruitful source of most of the moral virtues and social 
 graces. 
 
 The help of pictorial art should be largely enlisted in this 
 good work. To some extent this is already done, especially in 
 the excellent periodical, " The Animal World," published by 
 the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. 
 The series of illustrated volumes, issued by Partridge and Co., 
 specially commended by us, have been widely circulated among 
 the homes of the middle and higher classes. But there is room 
 for further effort in preparing and displaying pictures of a 
 plainer and more striking kind, to arrest the attention and touch 
 the feelings of the lower classes and of the young. For the 
 latter it would not be desirable to have the grosser forms of 
 cruelty vividly represented, but rather such illustrations as 
 might create sympathy and foster kindly feeling towards dumb 
 animals. For rougher natures, more direct appeals in the way 
 of pictorial effect would be needed. When Hogarth published 
 his four illustrations of cruelty to animals, he wrote thus : 
 
 " The leading points in these prints were made as obvious as 
 possible, in the hope that their tendency might be seen by 
 men of the lowest rank. Neither minute accuracy of design 
 nor fine engraving were deemed necessary, as the latter would 
 render them too expensive for the persons to whom they were 
 intended to be useful. And the fact is that the passions may be 
 more forcibly expressed by a strong bold stroke than by the
 
 HELP OF PICTORIAL ART. Ill 
 
 most delicate engraving. So expressing them as I felt them, I 
 have paid the utmost attention, and, as they were addressed to 
 hard hearts, have rather preferred leaving them hard, and 
 giving the effect by a quick touch, to rendering them languid 
 and feeble by fine strokes and soft engraving. The prints were 
 engraved with the hope of in some degree correcting that bar- 
 barous treatment of animals, the very sight of which renders 
 the streets of our metropolis so distressing to every feeling 
 mind. If they have had the effect and checked the progress of 
 cruelty, I am more proud of having been their author than I 
 should be of having painted Raphael's Cartoons." 
 
 These are right noble words, and more honourable to Hogarth's 
 memory than his highest triumphs of art. Pictures in which 
 the horrors and evil effects of cruelty to animals are delineated 
 in a plain and forcible manner, would make more impression on 
 certain minds than the most careful and earnest appeals in 
 tracts or sermons. If we had an artist who would take up this 
 subject as George Cruikshank has taken up the evils of drunken- 
 ness and of " The Bottle," he would be a powerful ally in the 
 cause of humanity. Some of our highest artists would feel it an 
 honour and privilege to be useful in this way, for the lower 
 animals have no truer and more generous friends than among 
 our artists. I commend this hint to the Secretary of the Society, 
 who could easily obtain the contributions of eminent artists for 
 so laudable an object. Mr. S. C. Hall enlisted the combined 
 contributions of many distinguished artists for his book against 
 intemperance, and this may serve as a good example for pro- 
 curing a similar book against cruelty to animals. 
 
 In the very earliest years, whether at home or in infant 
 schools, kindness to animals should be taught. A mother or 
 teacher can never be at a loss, by teaching or anecdote or ex- 
 ample, in impressing the young mind with tender feeling and
 
 112 MEANS OF PREVENTION. 
 
 gentle ways. The kind and considerate treatment of pet birds 
 or animals will come to be observed by the very youngest 
 children. When attention is thus awakened, and the claims of 
 these helpless creatures recognised, it will be easy to produce 
 the most lively and eager interest in all that belongs to animal 
 life. The press teems with publications suitable to be helps in 
 this training. Let me name as an example the books prepared 
 by the Rev. F. 0. Morris for use in juvenile classes and in 
 families. "The Natural History Scrap Book" and "Animal 
 Life in Europe," and others, published by the Religious Tract 
 Society, are most attractive for young people. But all books 
 of natural history abound in materials which a kind-hearted 
 and judicious parent or teacher can turn to good account. 
 
 The " Ladies' Committee " of the R.S.P.C.A., of which the 
 Baroness Burdett Coutts is president, has given valuable aid in 
 the educational department. Through their application the 
 General Committee placed at the disposal of the London School 
 Board 100, to Ibe laid out in prizes for the best essays on 
 humanity to animals. The presentation of these prizes by 
 H. R. H. the Duchess of Edinburgh, formed a notable feature 
 at the Jubilee Meeting in Albert Hall. Nearly five hundred 
 boys and girls received prize books or certificates of merit in- 
 scribed with their names. Two prizes were given for the best 
 essays in boys' higher schools, and two in the girls' schools. 
 In the elementary schools for boys and girls, there were also two 
 prizes. Many very young competitors and charity children 
 obtained certificates, and were heartily cheered on coming up to 
 get their rewards. Three prizes were given for essays written 
 by pupil teachers. Mr. Prebendary Jackson, on behalf of the 
 adjudicators, said that great care and attention had been used 
 in trying to find out the best essays ; the excellence of many of 
 them rendering the adjudication no easy task. As an old friend
 
 THE " ANIMAL WORLD." 113 
 
 of national and all elementary teachers, he congratulated the 
 masters and mistresses of the elementary schools of London 
 upon the vast progress that had taken place since he first under- 
 took to adjudicate upon these essays. Among the successful 
 competitors the eleven prize-bearers each represented a separate 
 school ; and the others who obtained certificates of merit repre- 
 sented three hundred and seventy schools, eighty other schools 
 being represented by pupil teachers. These facts and figures 
 indicate the large attention that has been secured to the subject 
 by the offering of prizes, and this will receive in future the 
 special care of the Ladies' Committee. 
 
 But this is only one form of the useful labours of the committee. 
 They have circulated an immense number of leaflets, tracts, 
 pamphlets, and other literature designed to inculcate humane 
 principles. These silent teachers they send into schools, village 
 libraries, reading-rooms, public-houses, prisons, and hospitals : 
 all places, in short, where they are likely to reach the classes for 
 which they are intended. They supply tract distributors and 
 district visitors with such publications for circulation. They 
 have caused numerous addresses and lectures to be delivered, to 
 the working classes and in schools, on the wonders of the animal 
 kingdom, and the claims which animals have upon man for 
 humane treatment. They urge the necessity of introducing 
 such topics in reading-books and copy-slips. They have sent 
 hundreds of thousands of copies of that excellent periodical 
 the " Animal "World " to school-masters and mistresses in the 
 United Kingdom and in the Colonies ; and they are unwearied 
 in planning new ways of influencing public opinion in favour 
 of educational efforts in this direction. 
 
 It only remains to add that for all this useful work the 
 Ladies' Humane Committee have no special funds, grants being 
 made from the general funds of the Society for any special object
 
 114 MEANS OF PREVENTION. 
 
 recommended by them. It is therefore all the more necessary 
 to remind the reader that the way to help any branch of the 
 good work, whether protective, legal, or educational, is to send 
 the needful supplies to the head-quarters at 105, Jermyn 
 Street. 
 
 A very simple and practical plan of kindness, both to man and 
 beast, is undertaken by the Metropolitan Drinking and Cattle- 
 Trough Association. This society provides free supplies of 
 water for animals in the streets of London. Upwards of three 
 hundred troughs and fountains have been erected, and are kept 
 in repair, and supplied with water, at no inconsiderable expense. 
 For some of the troughs the charges by the water companies are 
 as high as 30 a year, but then twelve hundred horses, besides 
 oxen, sheep, and dogs, may drink at a trough on a single day. 
 The friends of the temperauce cause, and those who pity the 
 poor animals employed in the service of man, are alike appealed 
 to to maintain and extend this useful association, which is 
 supported entirely by voluntary contributions.
 
 115 
 
 IY. 
 
 VIVISECTION, AND EXPERIMENTS ON LIVING ANIMALS. 
 ~ 1864 a prize of 50 was offered by the Royal Society for 
 
 f 
 
 the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, for the best essay 
 on the following propositions : 
 
 1. Is vivisection necessary or justifiable (when performed 
 
 as at certain veterinary schools) for the purpose of 
 giving dexterity to the operators ? 
 
 2. Is it necessary or justifiable for the general purposes 
 
 of science ; and if so, under what limitations ? 
 
 A number of distinguished and competent gentlemen were 
 invited and consented to weigh the merits of thirty-two essays, 
 which were written in competition for this prize, including the 
 Earl of Harrowby, president of the Society, Prince Louia Lucien 
 Bonaparte, Lord Stanhope, Lord Auckland, Bishop of Bath and 
 Wells, Colonel Bucke ridge, Mr. Frank Buckland, Dr. Carpenter, 
 Mr. Clarke, of the " Lancet," Dr. Eraser, Professor Owen, Dr. 
 Quain, Professor Spooner, and Professor Yarnell. At the 
 adjudication, the first prize was awarded to Mr. Fleming, 
 Veterinary Surgeon of the 3rd Hussars, and as another essay 
 was in the minority of only one vote, a second prize was given 
 by the Committee to its author, Dr. Markham, Physician to 
 St. Mary's Hospital, London. 
 
 These two essays were published by the Society in 1866. 
 They cover the entire ground of the controversy in regard to 
 vivisection, and on the whole fulfilled the conditions in the 
 prize essay advertisements : that the treatises should be sound.
 
 116 VIVISECTION. 
 
 conclusive, and convincing in evidence and argument. As 
 upwards of half of the essays forwarded in competition were 
 written, more or less, in defence of vivisection, it was suffi- 
 ciently understood that the Society intended fairly to consider 
 both sides of the discussion. In publishing the two successful 
 essays, the Society, while professing not to be bound by the 
 opinions of the essayists, so far endorsed and approved their 
 general scope. A brief statement of the conclusions arrived 
 at will therefore prove a suitable introduction to the present 
 discussion of the whole subject. 
 
 With regard to the first question, " Is vivisection necessary 
 or justifiable for the purpose of giving dexterity to the opera- 
 tor ? " the response was clear and decisive. The affirmative 
 of this proposition had been strenuously maintained in a Vete- 
 rinary College in France. It has long been the practice in 
 these colleges to require the students to perform a certain 
 number of operations on living animals. Eminent men had 
 defended the practice, as the best and most fruitful mode of 
 teaching veterinary surgery. Mr. Fleming's essay contains an 
 account of the operations performed by the students at the 
 principal school in France, the College at Alfort, and the 
 description would be hardly credited except on the testimony 
 of an eye-witness. " In a building or shed, open to the air on 
 one side, lay six or seven living horses, fixed by every possible 
 mechanical contrivance by the head and feet to pillars, to 
 prevent their struggling, and upon each horse were six or 
 seven pupils employed in performing different surgical opera- 
 tions. The sight was truly horrible. The operators had begun 
 early in the forenoon ; it was nearly three o'clock when we 
 entered the place, so that the poor wretches, as may be sup- 
 posed, had ceased being able to make any violent struggles ; but 
 the deep heaving of the still panting chest, and the horrible
 
 VETERINARY SCHOOLS OF ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 117 
 
 look of the eyes when such were remaining in the head while 
 the head was lashed to a pillar, were harrowing beyond endu- 
 rance. The students had begun their day's work in the least 
 vital parts of the animals, the trunks were there, but they had 
 lost their tails, ears, and hoofs, and the operators were now 
 engaged performing the more important operations." 
 
 We must not proceed with this ghastly detail. Each student 
 is required to rehearse eight distinct operations ; so that alto- 
 gether a single horse has to undergo sixty-four attacks of 
 cutting instruments or burning, each attack painful, nearly all 
 of them acutely so, and all in one day, if life remains. At the 
 School of Lyons the same course of training is adopted, but with 
 somewhat fewer operations required fro-m each student. The 
 scandal caused by these cruelties led to an appeal to the late 
 Emperor of the French, who referred the matter to a commis- 
 sion, and the result was that French scientific men declared 
 such atrocities to be necessary. These practices are therefore 
 continued at the present time. 
 
 To the honour of the Veterinary Schools of England, vivisec- 
 tion has never been allowed in them. The English veterinary 
 surgeons have no other means of acquiring dexterity before 
 entering on practice than by operations on the dead body ; and, 
 as Mr. Fleming with just pride observes, " no one will deny 
 that they are as well qualified to undertake the management of 
 difficult operations as the vivisectionists." " Every operation," 
 Mr. Fleming adds, " can be as successfully taught on the dead 
 as on the living horse ; indeed, from experience, I can sincerely 
 aver that more instruction, and more skill and dexterity will be 
 acquired in less time in the dissecting room than in the operat- 
 ing yard." Professor Owen, in his published notes on the 
 essays, says, " I entirely concur in the unanimous conclusion of 
 the essayists in denouncing the stupid and atrocious system,
 
 118 VIVISECTION. 
 
 which assumes, for instance, that it is necessary for the vete- 
 rinarian tyro to draw the red-hot iron along the skin of a living 
 horse, in order to enable him to apply it properly in a case 
 requiring firing." 
 
 We may therefore dismiss this part of the inquiry, only 
 expressing regret that there are so many defenders of these 
 .cruelties in foreign countries, although happily not in England. 
 
 With regard to the second question, " Is vivisection necessary 
 or justifiable for the general purposes of science ; and if so, 
 under what limitations ? " both the prize essayists agreed that 
 "the use of chloroform or some other anaesthetic is demanded 
 in every case where practicable ; " and that " Experiments 
 performed before students, in classes or otherwise, for the 
 purpose of demonstrating known facts in physiology or thera- 
 peutics, are unjustifiable." Dr. Markham says of such opera- 
 tions, " They are needless and cruel ; needless, because they 
 demonstrate that which is already acquired to science, and 
 especially cruel, because if admitted as a recognised part of 
 students' instruction, their constant repetition through all 
 time would be required." Then, in parenthesis, Dr. Markham 
 adds, " I need hardly say that courses of experimental physi- 
 ology are nowhere given in this country ; and that these 
 remarks consequently apply only to those schools in France 
 and elsewhere where demonstrations of this kind are delivered." 
 
 " The only justifiable experiments," Dr. Markham says, " are 
 those made in order to determine facts in physiology, pathology, 
 and therapeutics, whereby medical knowledge may be directly 
 or indirectly advanced." The conditions under which such 
 scientific researches may be undertaken are thus stated : 
 "that chloroform or other anaesthetic be used, and that the 
 experimenter be a skilled anatomist and physiologist, capable 
 of reading and appreciating all the facts which experiments
 
 PEIZE ESSAYS ON VIVISECTION. 119 
 
 may offer to his observation ; that he has made himself master 
 of. all the known facts affecting the matter which he is about 
 to investigate ; that he has, in a word, duly, I might say 
 solemnly, prepared himself to perform the business he has taken 
 in hand." 
 
 The fulfilment of these conditions, it is stated in the preface 
 to the published essays, " would suppress probably not less 
 than ninety per cent, of these atrocities which it has been the 
 earnest desire of the Society to prevent." 
 
 Mr. Fleming, in his essay, while declining to deny abso- 
 lutely the right of experimenting on live animals for purposes 
 of science, maintains that the practice is justifiable only under 
 the most rare and exceptional circumstances. " The right to 
 experiment (he thinks) should be limited to a very few, and 
 they should be men who are not only qualified by general 
 scientific attainments for such a responsible and profound task, 
 but by their humane and merciful characters." 
 
 Such was the position of the question in 1866, when the prize 
 essays were published. At the meeting of the British Asso- 
 ciation at Liverpool, in 1870, a committee of Section D, Biology, 
 was requested to draw up a report on the following resolution 
 " To consider whether any steps can be taken by them or by 
 the association, which will tend to reduce to its minimum the 
 suffering entailed by legitimate physiological inquiries, or any 
 which will have the effect of employing the influence of the 
 association in the discouragement of experiments which are 
 not clearly legitimate on live animals." 
 
 The report of the committee was published in the Volume of 
 the British Association for 1871, p. 144, as follows : 
 
 " 1. No experiment which can be performed under the in- 
 fluence of an anaesthetic ought to be done without it.
 
 120 VIVISECTION. 
 
 "2. No painful experiment is justifiable for the mere purpose 
 of illustrating a fact already demonstrated ; in other 
 words, experimentation without the employment of 
 ansesthetics is not a fitting exhibition for teaching 
 purposes. 
 
 "3. 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 
 suffering inflicted may not be wasted. For this 
 reason, no painful experiment ought to be performed 
 by an unskilled person, with inefficient instruments 
 and assistance, or in places not suitable to the pur- 
 pose, that is to say, anywhere except in physiological 
 or pathological laboratories, with proper regulations." 
 
 This report went as far perhaps as might have been expected from 
 a committee of men of science, one of whom had been largely 
 engaged in such researches. But in the few years that have 
 since passed, the practice of vivisection has increased to a scan- 
 dalous extent, and the evils are not now confined to foreign 
 countries, as they were when Dr. Markham spoke in the name 
 of the respectable part of the medical profession in England. 
 
 At some of the hospitals and schools of medicine in London, 
 experiments on living animals now form part of the regular cur- 
 riculum of study. In the prospectus of Guy's Hospital Medical 
 School for 1874-75, we are told, " Demonstrations of the func- 
 tions of organs on living animals are performed before the class 
 by the lecturers on physiology." At the Westminster Hospital 
 School there are " Experiments on animals on the action of the 
 heart, the rate and force of the blood currents, etc. Gentlemen 
 will themselves perform the experiments so far as opportunities 
 permit." The latter clause has been since suppressed, but the
 
 LONDON SCHOOLS OF PHYSIOLOGY. 121 
 
 demonstrations are continued. At the University College is 
 given "a course of demonstrations in animal physiology 
 under the direction of the Jodrill Professor of Human Physi- 
 ology." Similar arrangements are announced in other prin- 
 cipal schools of medicine. Besides these, there is the Brown 
 Institute, where pupils, not regular students of medicine, are 
 admitted. At all these places demonstrations are given through- 
 out the Winter and Summer Sessions, the number of experi- 
 ments amounting in all to some hundreds, independently of 
 those made in pursuing original investigations. 
 
 The nature of these demonstrations may be judged from the 
 headings of some of the sections in the " Handbook of the 
 Physiological Laboratory," prepared for the use of the pupils at 
 University College. Whether the experiments are few or 
 many, or whether performed by teacher or pupils, is not the 
 point, so much as the repetition of them, merely for demon- 
 strating ascertained facts. Among them we find " Asphyxia 
 by slow suffocation," " Mode of producing permanent fistula," 
 and others equally barbarous, and useless for practical purposes 
 in "the healing art."" One operation illustrating a point of 
 importance in science, known as " Recurrent Sensibility," is 
 thus referred to : " This can only be shown in the higher 
 animals, the cat or dog being best adapted for the purpose. 
 The method adopted is this : The arches of one or two 
 vertebrae are carefully sawn through, or cut through with the 
 bone forceps, and the exposed roots very carefully freed from 
 the connective tissue surrounding them. If the animals be 
 strong, and have thoroughly recovered from the chloroform and 
 from the operation, irritation of the peripheral stump of the 
 anterior root causes not only contraction in the muscles, but 
 also movements in other parts of the body, indicative of 
 pain. On dividing the mixed trunk the contractions cease,
 
 122 VIVISECTION. 
 
 but the general signs of pain or sensation remain." "Hand- 
 book," p. 403. 
 
 I have underlined a few words, for the sake of calling attention 
 to a point of importance in the discussion. It is generally sup- 
 posed that these experiments are painless, being only performed 
 when the animals are under the influence of chloroform. One 
 eminent surgeon (I refrain from giving his name), who has 
 appeared as defender of vivisection in letters in the " Times," 
 refers to " painless demonstrations." Anaesthetics may be ad- 
 ministered in most cases, but in many they are not ; and even 
 when the operation commenced under their influence, the 
 injury and the mutilation of the animals remain, after the effects 
 of the chloroform have passed off, for they are not always 
 " mercifully put out of pain," i.e., killed (as at Guy's Hospital), 
 but are sometimes reserved for other operations. Occasionally 
 there is used a preparation, a vegetable poison, which paralyses 
 muscular motion, while it heightens sensation, the animal being 
 kept alive by artificial respiration till the effects of the drug 
 have passed off. A spectator, unaware of the treatment, might 
 suppose that the animal was insensible to pain, while it really 
 suffered double torture. 
 
 It is a mockery, therefore, to plead that the demonstrations 
 are always painless. In some experiments the action of chloro- 
 form would interfere with the results, as when the object is to 
 demonstrate the increased sensibility, or the occurrence of pain, 
 under certain conditions. The plea is put forward to lessen 
 public odium ; but the readers of medical journals know that 
 in. many eases the animajs are kept for days and even for weeks 
 in a mutilated state, for the renewal or variation of experi- 
 ments. The details of these agonising scenes are too horrible 
 to give, and no English surgeon of repute ought to sanction 
 such atrocities by a general plea in defence of the right of vivi-
 
 PROFESSOR SCHIFF'S LABORATORY AT FLORENCE. 123 
 
 section. The same writer protests against " the interference of 
 those who have neither the knowledge nor the means of know- 
 ledge of the nature and the value of these studies." The 
 admission of such a protest in the " Times " newspaper might 
 mislead some who do not know the facts of the case, and it will 
 be therefore necessary here to present some statements, though 
 they may be distressing to sensitive and humane minds. 
 Without clear knowledge of the truth as to vivisection as now 
 practised, public opinion cannot be brought to bear. 
 
 Readers of medical journals have long been aware of the ex- 
 tensive practice of vivisection in the laboratory of Professor 
 Schiff at Florence. In the " Life of Mrs. Somerville," who 
 spent part of her last years at Florence, there are several refer- 
 ences to the scandal caused by Professor SchifPs experiments, 
 and the veteran scientific writer contrasts the " inutility as well 
 as the barbarity of such proceedings with the researches of Sir 
 Charles Bell, who was as distinguished for his humanity as for 
 his discoveries." Rumours of these cruel proceedings having 
 thus come to the public ear, an English physiologist wrote 10 
 the " Times " a partial defence, and the Professor himself made 
 some explanations, with the assertion that the operations were 
 painless. How far these defences are justified by facts the fol- 
 lowing summary of the report of an eye-witness will prove. A 
 visit to M. Schiff's laboratory and adjoining rooms was paid by 
 the Chief Inspector of the Society for the Prevention oi' Cruelty 
 to Animals at Florence, with two or three of the members. In 
 their report they say : 
 
 "We entered the premises at 11 a.m. (June 18, 1874) and 
 asked for the Professor, who accompanied us throughout our 
 visit. In the first room we found an attendant cleaning away 
 the stains of blood of a poor dog on which uii experiment had 
 just been performed, and which the Professor told us he had
 
 124 VIVISECTION. 
 
 killed. On our requesting him, however, to let us see the dead 
 animal, he sought to divert us from our wish by means of many 
 words and phrases ; but, on our insisting, he, after some little 
 time, said, ' Come by all means,' and, opening a door leading 
 into another room with two exits, he said, ' He is no longer 
 here ; they have removed him.' 
 
 " On our return to the yard below, Mr. Sharp and I saw a 
 large poodle with a wide, open wound under the throat. At 
 my suggestion, we made an attempt to obtain a closer view ; 
 but, owing to the terror the dog was in, we failed. Our atten- 
 tion was then directed to other dogs, whereof the greater number 
 had wide and deep wounds under their throats. On our asking 
 why these barbarities were committed, the Professor confessed 
 that those deep incisions were made by him to prevent the 
 animals from howling, and so disturbing the neighbourhood. 
 Tied up in a small room we noticed a little dog, quite blind, and 
 in reply to our inquiry why it was not killed, the Professor told 
 us that it was kept for vivisection. 
 
 " Near the garden door was found a number of dogs tied up 
 in couples, some with wounds and others sound. One of them 
 was hardly able to stand, caused, we were told, by illness. On 
 asking the Professor why it was kept alive, he did not reply, 
 and changed the subject. 
 
 " "We saw quantities of fowls, pigeons, and rabbits. We 
 made no inquiries about them, and by this time our feelings were 
 such that we at once left the premises." 
 
 On inquiry, it was found that all the dogs not claimed at the 
 Home for Lost Dogs, were handed over to M. Schiff. About 300 
 had thus been disposed of in little more than six months. The 
 President of the Society appealed to the syndic, or mayor of 
 Florence, as to the legality of this, as the municipal regulations 
 require that the dogs taken to the home are either to be re-
 
 PROSECUTION IN THE NORWICH CASE. 125 
 
 turned to their owners, on payment of fine or tax, or are to be 
 killed. The syndic took no notice of the appeal, and M. Schiff 
 continues his demonstrations. In April, 1875, the walls of 
 Florence were extensively posted with this announcement : 
 " Dogs are purchased at No. 8, Via S. Sebastiano, at the rate 
 of one franc each. For every ten dogs a sum to be agreed on 
 between buyer and seller will be paid." 
 
 During the meeting of the British Medical Association at 
 Norwich, in August, 1874, a French physiologist, M. Eugene 
 Magnan, operated upon two dogs in the smoking-room of the 
 Masonic Hall, in that city. The professed object was to show 
 the effects of alcohol upon the system. The legs and heads of 
 the poor animals were tied down to the table, and then through 
 tubes inserted into their thighs absinthe and other alcoholic 
 fluids were injected. The operator was assisted by four medical 
 practitioners of Norwich, whose names I refrain from giving, 
 as they may yet be ashamed of themselves for the part they 
 took in the wretched exhibition. There were many spectators, 
 including eminent physicians and surgeons, whose names we also 
 refrain from giving, as the amount of approval or disapproval 
 on the part of each is not apparent. A well-known London 
 surgeon was nominated arbitrator, and allowed the experiments 
 to continue, acting, we are willing to believe, against his better 
 judgment and feeling, with a desire not to seem to oppose the 
 principle of experimenting on living animals, rather than with 
 direct approval of this particular operation. 
 
 The case was one of flagrant and stupid barbarity. The 
 general effects of alcohol on the system are known, and special 
 points yet undetermined can be ascertained by observation in 
 medical practice far more surely than by experiments under 
 unnatural conditions. The Royal Society for the Prevention 
 of Cruelty to Animals very properly instituted proceedings
 
 126 VIVISECTION. 
 
 against the Norwich practitioners who assisted at the experi- 
 ments. Sir William Fergusson, the eminent surgeon, on being 
 examined as a witness, described " the ghastly scene," " the 
 groaning of the dogs," their "writhing agony," and in one of 
 them, " epileptic convulsions," adding an emphatic con- 
 demnation of the whole exhibition as a wanton piece of cruelty. 
 It is a pity that Sir William did not at the time raise his voice 
 in protest, for it is probable that the arbitrator might then 
 have had the manliness to put an end to the revolting exhi- 
 bition. The Norwich magistrates agreed in the opinion that 
 the experiments constituted an act of cruelty, but eventually 
 dismissed the case, as the offence did not seem to come within 
 the meaning of the Act under which the prosecution was laid. 
 
 The Academy of Sciences at Paris, at its annual meeting, 
 testified its appreciation of M. Magnan's share in the experi- 
 ment by awarding him a prize of 2,500 francs. The opinion of 
 the medical profession in England has been divided as to the 
 merit or demerit of the experimenters, the general feeling being 
 that the experiments in this instance were not demanded in the 
 interests of science. 
 
 Although this first case of prosecution for cruelty under the 
 pretext of science has been unsuccessful, let us hope that it may 
 prove beneficial as a warning, and that it may help to educate 
 public opinion on the subject of vivisection generally. If 
 another such case could be brought before an English jury, the 
 expression of opinion would be more decided. Few of our 
 magistrates have had the subject specially brought to their 
 notice, and most of them are likely to show unwillingness to 
 act in opposition to what is represented as necessary for the 
 advancement of science and for the benefit of mankind. It is 
 important, therefore, that magistrates should know how far men 
 of science are divided as to the alleged benefits of vivisection,
 
 SCENES IN A PHYSIOLOGICAL LABORATORY. 127 
 
 and also that most of those who maintain the occasional 
 advantage of experiments, agree in denouncing those exhibited 
 at Norwich as needless acts of cruelty. 
 
 It may be said that this scene at Norwich was an exceptional 
 one, and that the presence of the French physiologist may have 
 been chiefly to blame for its perpetration. Unhappily it is not 
 so. The practice of vivisection, not only for purposes of in- 
 vestigation, but for demonstration and illustration of received 
 facts in physiology, is greatly on the increase in England. 
 
 The difficulty in bringing cases of this kind before a legal 
 tribunal is the secrecy with which the operations are conducted. 
 Without the evidence of eye-witnesses conviction cannot be 
 obtained. No student attending the demonstrations at our 
 London schools dare appear as a witness till he has become in- 
 dependent of his fellow-students and his teachers. Prosecutions 
 cannot be taken up after a certain time has elapsed. The only 
 thing that can be done is to make known to the public, and 
 especially to legislators and magistrates, this new form of 
 cruelty which has sprung up in England within the last few 
 years. For this purpose I introduce the statement (hitherto 
 unchallenged) of a medical practitioner, Dr. George Hoggan, 
 who has published in the newspapers and in " Eraser's Maga- 
 zine," for April, 1875, a little of his own experience, gained ag 
 an assistant in the laboratory of one of the best known experi- 
 mental physiologists. He refers, it is assumed, to the laboratory 
 of a Parisian professor, M. Bernard, but his evidence may serve 
 as a warning as to what is possible in England, if a check is 
 not put upon the practice. 
 
 " 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 goou of
 
 128 VIVISECTION. 
 
 humanity was simply out of the question, and would have been 
 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 labo- 
 ratory 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. Even when roughly grasped and thrown. 
 on the torture trough a low complaining whine at such treat- 
 ment would be all the protest made, and they would continue to 
 lick the hand which bound them till their mouths were fixed in 
 the gag, and they could only flap their tail in the trough as 
 their last means of exciting compassion. Often when convulsed 
 by the pain of their torture this would be renewed, and they 
 would be soothed instantly on receiving a few gentle pats. It 
 was all the aid or comfort I could give them, and I gave it 
 often. They seemed to take it as an earnest of fellow-feeling 
 that would cause their torture to come to an end an end only 
 brought by death. 
 
 " Were the feelings of experimental physiologists not bluntexl, 
 they could not long continue the practice of vivisection. They 
 are always ready to repudiate any implied want of tender feel- 
 ing, but I must say that they seldom show much pity ; on the 
 contrary, in practice they frequently show the reverse. Hun- 
 dreds of times I have seen when an animal writhed with pain,
 
 DR. GEORGE WILSON. 129 
 
 arid 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 com- 
 pleted his experiment, and which had still some life left, to the 
 assistants, to practise the finding of arteries, nerves, etc., 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 handbooks." 
 
 " It could be wished," says Dr. George Wilson, in his " Life 
 of Dr. John Reid," " that the invitations to all and sundry 
 among the students of a college or university, to imbrue their 
 hands in innocent blood, as candidates for honours or medals, 
 were more guarded than at present they are. A premium has 
 thus been put upon animal torture and animal murder, at the 
 hands of the most inexperienced, and the most unskilful mem- 
 bers of the profession, which has b2en productive of serious 
 evil. It is time that something be done to check it, by suitable 
 Caution arid advice to students ; and few things would be more
 
 1 30 VIVISECTION. 
 
 effectual than the public condemnation of injudicious and need- 
 lessly cruel physiological experiments, even when these occur in 
 essays deemed worthy of reward. Our central, regulating, and 
 examining medical bodies have much in their power in refer- 
 ence to this ; and owe it to the character of the profession for 
 humanity, not to tempt young men to let desire for distinctions 
 induce them to be thoughtlessly, much less deliberately, cruel." 
 Let it be observed, that all these operations are what have 
 hitherto been admitted to be "needless and cruel." Experi- 
 ments performed merely for demonstrating facts already estab- 
 lished, have been till now almost universally condemned. It 
 was for such practices that the late M. Magendie, in Paris, 
 incurred just odium and contempt. Men who have had ample 
 experience in teaching have testified that these experiments 
 are useless, and therefore cruel. The late Dr. Fletcher, 
 of Edinburgh, a favourite pupil of Mr. Abernethy, who 
 himself often denounced the needless cruelties of physiologists, 
 thus expressed his sentiments in his "Introductory Lecture 
 to Physiology : " " Certainly no cruelty is requisite in con- 
 veying, whatever may have been practised in acquiring, the 
 knowledge. None of the functions of animals need be seen 
 in action in order to be perfectly well understood ; they 
 may be abundantly well fancied from preparation and repre- 
 sentations of the organs engaged in performing them. During 
 many years' experience in lecturing on this subject, I have 
 never yet found it necessary, 'in a single instance, to expose 
 a suffering animal, even to students of medicine (who are 
 necessarily, in some degree, familiarised with sights of horror), 
 for the purpose of elucidating any point in physiology." In 
 the lectures on the Institutes of Medicine in the University of 
 Edinburgh, Professor Alison never had recourse to such ex- 
 hibitions in illustration of his lessons. In view of the new
 
 SAMUEL JOHNSON. 131 
 
 system of teaching recently introduced in the London schools, 
 every humane and truly scientific man will thank Professor Owen 
 for his emphatic words, " I reprobate the performance of experi- 
 ments on living animals to show to students what such experi- 
 ments have taught the master; whilst the arguments for learning 
 to experiment by repeating experiments on living animals, are 
 as futile as those for so learning to operate chirurgically." 
 
 Seeing that these things are done on an extensive scale, and 
 are openly defended, there is good reason for reproducing the 
 indignant protest of the great English moralist of last century : 
 " Among the inferior professors of medical knowledge," says 
 Dr. Johnson, in one of the papers in the " Idler " (No. 17), "is 
 a race of wretches whose lives are only varied by varieties of 
 cruelty ; whose favourite amusement is to nail dogs to tables, 
 and open them alive ; to try how long life may be continued in 
 various degrees of mutilation, or with the excision or laceration 
 of the vital parts; to examine whether burning irons are felt 
 more acutely by bone or tendon ; and whether the more lasting 
 agonies are produced by poisons forced into the mouth or in- 
 jected into the veins. It is not without reluctance that I offend 
 the sensibility of the tender mind with images like these. If 
 such cruelties were not practised, it were to be desired that they 
 should not be conceived ; but since they are published every day 
 with ostentation, let me be allowed once to mention them, since 
 I mention them with abhorrence. . . . What is alleged in 
 defence of these hateful practices every one knows; but the 
 truth is that by knives, fire, and poisons, knowledge is not 
 always sought, and is very seldom attained. I know not that 
 by living dissections any discovery has been made, by which a 
 single malady is more easily cured. And if the knowledge pf 
 physiology has been somewhat increased, he surely buys 
 knowledge dear who learns the use of the lacteals at the ex-
 
 132 VIVISECTION. 
 
 pense of his own humanity. It is time that universal resent- 
 ment should arise against those horrid operations, which tend 
 to harden the heart and make the physician more dreadful 
 than the gout or the stone." 
 
 This statement of Dr. Johnson has been ascribed to prejudice 
 and ignorance by those against whose cruelty it is directed, and 
 who are abashed by his strong and honest censure. His indig- 
 nation led him to injustice in speaking of such experiments as 
 the " favourite amusement " of the operators, for we may 
 suppose that higher motives actuate even the most callous 
 vivisector. But not the less it is true that the most stupid and 
 wanton cruelties are still perpetrated, deserving all the severity 
 of Dr. Johnson's criticism. Nor are these confined to " the 
 inferior professors of medical knowledge." Let me give one or 
 two examples. 
 
 M. Brachet, an eminent French physician under Charles x. 
 and Louis Philippe, who obtained the Physiological prize from 
 the Institute, narrates the following experiment : 
 
 " I inspired a dog," he says, " with the greatest aversion for 
 me, by plaguing and inflicting some pain or other upon it as 
 often as I saw it. When this feeling was carried to its height, 
 so that the animal became furious as soon as it saw or heard me, 
 I put out its eyes ; I could then appear before it without its 
 manifesting any aversion. I spoke, and immediately its bark- 
 ings and furious movements proved the passion which animated 
 it. I destroyed the drum of its ears, and disorganised the 
 internal ear as much as I could ; when an intense inflammation 
 which was excited had rendered it deaf, I filled up its ears with 
 wax. It could no longer hear at all. Then I went to its side, 
 spoke aloud, and even caressed it, without its falling into a 
 rage ; it seemed even sensible to my caresses." It was thought 
 necessary to repeat this experiment, in order that there might
 
 MM. BRACKET AND BOUILLAUD. 138 
 
 be no uncertainty in the result! "And what," observes Dr. 
 Elliotson, who criticised the case, " what was all this to prove ? 
 Simply, that if one brute has an aversion to another, it does not 
 feel or show that aversion when it has no means of knowing 
 that the other brute is present. If he had stood near the dog 
 on the other side of a wall, he might have equally proved what 
 common sense required not to be proved. After all, I do, not 
 understand how the poor dog did not scent him. I blush for 
 human nature in detailing this experiment." 
 
 Here is another example. Painful as the recital is, it is well 
 that non-professional readers should know what kind of experi- 
 ments are made by men high in science, and so understand that 
 it is no groundless prejudice which holds up their researches to 
 reprobation. 
 
 The narrator in this in stance was M. Bouillaud, a man of high 
 scientific name, and one of the most conspicuous physicians in 
 the Medical School of Paris. His mode of procedure in 
 investigating the functions of the brain, was to injure or remove 
 various portions of the cerebral substance in different animals, 
 and then to watch and note the effects as long as they survived. 
 The account of the eleventh experiment begins thus : " I made 
 an opening on each side of the forehead of a young dog, and 
 forced a red-hot iron into each of the anterior lobes of the brain. 
 Immediately afterwards the animal, after howling violently, lay 
 down as if to sleep. On urging it, it walked or even ran, for a 
 considerable space : it did not know how to avoid obstacles 
 placed in its way, and on encountering them groaned, or even 
 howled violently. Deprived of the knowledge of external 
 objects, it no longer made any movements either to avoid or 
 approach them. But it still could perform such motions as are 
 called instinctive : it withdrew its feet when they were pinched, 
 and shook itself when water was poured upon it. It turned
 
 134 VIVISECTION. 
 
 incessantly in the cage as if to get out, and became impatient 
 of the restraint thus imposed." After noting many revolting 
 details, he says, " It slept occasionally for a short time, and on 
 awakening began its mournful cries. We tried to keep it quiet 
 by beating it, but it only cried more loudly : it did not understand 
 the lesson; it was incorrigible." Some days elapsed, and the 
 journal continues : " Its fore-legs are now half paralysed ; in 
 walking, or rather in dragging itself along, it rests upon the 
 back of its foot bent upon the leg. No change has taken place 
 in respect to his intellectual power : as its irrepressible cries 
 disturbed the neighbourhood, I was obliged to kill it." Another 
 young dog that had been exposed to similar suffering from 
 having had " the cranium and cerebral hemispheres sawed 
 transversely," escaped from its torturer by a comparatively easy 
 death. " To prevent its plaintive cries disturbing my neigh- 
 bours, I enveloped it in a thick sack. On examining it some 
 time afterwards, I found that it had died from suffocation." 
 Another dog was selected, " possessing the reputation of being 
 lively, docile, and intelligent." The anterior part of its brain 
 was transfixed on the 28th June, and day after day, for several 
 weeks, it was tortured in every possible way, and the effects 
 recorded. After detailing the results, he says, on the 7th July, 
 " when menaced, it crouches, as if to implore mercy, but does 
 not in consequence obey. It, on the contrary, utters cries 
 which nothing can repress, similar to those of an uneducated 
 dog, whose intellect is undeveloped. It eats with great voracity, 
 and is in good health. / watched it attentively for the remainder 
 of this, and for the first fifteen days of the succeeding month. Its 
 want of docility was remarkable : when called it did not come, 
 but lay down and wagged its tail with an air of stupidity. 
 When we tried to lead it, it resisted, rolled upon the ground, 
 and cried, but at last walked, again stopped, and drew back, 

 
 FALLACIES OF VIVISECTION. 135 
 
 and cried anew. When confined it cried continually, in spite 
 of all correction. It appeared astonished at everything; it 
 was easily alarmed ; and when menaces were succeeded by 
 blows, in place of flying, or acting so as to avoid them, it merely 
 lay down in a supplicating posture and cried. It did not caress 
 us on our return, (!) although absent for many days. Some 
 days afterwards, I led it to the river, and, regardless of its terror, 
 threw it in ; on this occasion it quickly swam on shore, and 
 returned to the house. I sometimes put it out at the door, 
 menacing to make it go away, but it remained, or if it did go, 
 it was only for a few steps, when it returned, uttering slight 
 cries, as if entreating us to open the door. All its docility 
 consisted in coming, when, after caressing it, we called upon it 
 in a tone of kindness ; or, if we had menaced, beat, or called 
 upon it in vain, in going away, holding down its head and tail, 
 and in crouching down as if in the act of supplication. It was 
 sacrificed on the 15th August, in the performance of a new 
 experiment." " I have made many experiments," says M. 
 Bouillaud, " similar to the one now detailed, but the subjects of 
 them died too soon to allow me to draw any clear and definite 
 conclusions." 
 
 M. Brachet and M. Bouillaud were at the very head of the 
 medical profession in their day in France. If they could 
 unblushingly record such experiments, what may not be done 
 by men of inferior caste ? The use of anaesthetics, while 
 lessening the amount of suffering, does not lessen the heart- 
 lessness and stupidity of such operations. 
 
 Every man of sound sense as well as ordinary humanity 
 must question the legitimacy of conclusions arrived at by 
 such methods of inquiry. Attempts to mutilate the cerebral 
 substance are not calculated to afford much information. Other 
 parts than that under the scalpel are almost certain to be
 
 136 VIVISECTION. 
 
 injured, or if not thus injured, they may be affected by 
 the extension of the irritation produced by the operation, 
 and by sympathy with the injured parts. There are other 
 sources of error inseparable from such methods of inquiry. For 
 instance, the loss or enfeeblement of any particular faculty after 
 the destruction of a certain part of the encephalon, is no 
 adequate proof of the alleged connection between that organ 
 and the manifestations referred to it ; because the same loss 
 might follow a violent injury of any part of the brain, or indeed 
 of any part of the body. Thus M. Bouillaud argued from the 
 last of the horrible operations referred to in the preceding 
 paragraph. " This experiment," he says, " is well worth our 
 attention. The animal scarcely understood us when we called 
 on it ; it no longer played with or caressed other dogs ; it had 
 a stupid or astonished air : all the corrections inflicted to compel 
 it to remain in one place were unavailing, if the place did not 
 please it ; it no longer understood their meaning ; its want of 
 docility was extreme." " We found, on examining the body, 
 that there remained of the wounds inflicted, solely a canal 
 traversing the anterior part of the brain ; it is to this, the only 
 existing lesion, that the impairment of the intellectual powers 
 is to be attributed." It was therefore demonstrated, according 
 to this philosopher, that the particular part of the brain injured 
 was the seat of the faculties deranged, and that to its lesion 
 was to be attributed the " stupidity " which restrained a 
 sentient being from caressing its torturers ; the " want of 
 docility " which prevented a poor brute, writhing in agony, 
 from understanding the meaning of the blows inflicted to 
 compel it to remain in one place ! 
 
 Those who admit the abstract right to perform experiments 
 on living animals, for the advancement of science, with the
 
 RESULTS OF VIVISECTION. ] 37 
 
 view of improvement of the healing art, may yet hesitate to 
 admit the expediency of any such method of research. The 
 whole history of this branch of physiological inquiry, from the 
 time of Herophilus, Erasistratus, and the Egyptian dogmatists, 
 who are said to have experimented on living human male- 
 factors, if it does not convince men of science of the almost 
 total inutility of such methods of research, must at least force 
 them to admit, that they are of infinitely less service than it is 
 no w the custom to represent them. Take any of the particular sub- 
 jects that have occupied the attention of the greatest anatomists 
 and physicians who have been vivisectors, the functions of the 
 various parts of the encephalon, for example ; and what a mass 
 of vague and absurdly discordant results appears as the fruit of 
 all their inquiries! After the myriads of experiments by 
 Legallois and Wilson Philip, Amussat and Fleurens, Magendie 
 and Bouillaud, and multitudes of others, it is surely fair to ask 
 what satisfactory results have been obtained ? Physiologists 
 know well how small a number of facts there are, universally or 
 even generally admitted, as the fruits of vivisection ; and out of 
 the few conclusions that have been placed beyond the reach of 
 controversy, I believe there is scarcely one that has not, or 
 might not have been as surely arrived at by anatomical and 
 pathological research. 
 
 Let the question be put calmly to medical men, or to phy- 
 siologists, what additions of importance have been made to our 
 theoretical knowledge, and what accessions to our resources, 
 either in the prevention or the cure of disease, have been 
 obtained strictly through vivisection, and it will be found that 
 they are in general at a loss for a reply, or that their answers 
 are confined to a very brief list of alleged results. 
 
 The three most notable discoveries ascribed to experiments 
 on living animals, are the circulation of the blood, by Harvey ; 
 
 K
 
 138 VIVISECTION. 
 
 the double functions of the 'spinal nerves, by Sir Charles Bell ; 
 aud the use of chloroform as an anaesthetic, by Sir James 
 Simpson. These are indeed splendid discoveries, but the state- 
 ment that they are due to vivisection must be received with 
 much reservation. 
 
 Let us take first the discovery of chloroform as an anaes- 
 thetic. " Surely any amount of suffering that the case might 
 have required might have been legitimately inflicted upon the 
 lower animals, to secure such an inestimable boon to humanity." 
 These are the words of Dr. Carpenter, a humane man as well 
 as a distinguished physiologist, and who when a lecturer on 
 physiology never exhibited experiments on living animals to 
 his students. Dr v Carpenter puts the matter hypothetically, 
 i.e., "might have been legitimately inflicted," for he knows 
 well that chloroform, and the anaesthetic uses of it, were not 
 discovered by experimenting on living animals. But other 
 advocates of vivisection, less informed or less scrupulous, have 
 made a great boast of this as a result of their art. The fact is 
 that the use of chloroform was the result of an experiment, but it 
 was an experiment, and rather a perilous one, tried by Sir James 
 Simpson upon himself, and by his assistant Dr. Keith, as they have 
 graphically narrated. The previous use of the vapour of sul- 
 phuric ether as an anaesthetic was also the result of a trial 
 on himself by an American. These facts are so well known 
 that the reference to chloroform in support of vivisection is an 
 unworthy appeal to popular prejudice. 
 
 AVith regard to the circulation of the blood, I find the fol- 
 lowing remarkable passage in the works of the Hon. Robert 
 Boyle: "I remember," says Mr. Boyle, "that when I asked 
 our famous Harvey, in the only discourse I had with him 
 (which was but a little while before he died), what were the 
 \hings which induced him to thiiik of a circulation of the blood,
 
 SIR CHAKLES BELL. 139 
 
 he answered me, that when he took notice that the valves in the 
 veins of so many parts of the body were so placed that they 
 gave free passage to the blood towards the heart, but opposed 
 the passage of the blood the contrary way, he was invited to 
 think that so provident a cause as Nature had not placed so 
 many valves without a design ; and no design seemed more 
 probable than that, since the blood could not, because of the 
 interposing valves, be sent by the veins to the limbs, it should 
 be sent through the arteries, and return through the veins 
 whose valves did not oppose the course that way." 
 
 Here we have the testimony of Harvey himself that he was 
 led to the discovery by anatomical observation, and inference 
 therefrom. Experiments were afterwards made in proof of what 
 he had discovered. At that era of medical science prejudice was 
 great, and experiments seemed necessary for the demonstration 
 of his doctrine, and for the removal of the violent opposition it 
 met with. The example of Harvey is no plea for the repetition 
 of his demonstrations. 
 
 In the same manner Sir Charles Bell has left on record an 
 express declaration that his great discovery was due, not to 
 experiment, but to observation, and a few experiments were 
 afterwards made, not for his own conviction, but for the satis- 
 faction of others. " It was necessary," he says, " to know 
 whether the phenomena exhibited on injuring the separate 
 roots of the spinal nerves correspond with what was sug- 
 gested by their anatomy." Some experiments were performed 
 " after delaying long, on account of the unpleasant nature of 
 the operation." And he adds, " These experiments satisfied me 
 that the different roots, and the different columns from whence 
 these roots arose, were devoted to distinct offices, and that the 
 notions drawn from the anatomy were correct." Professor 
 Owen, commenting on this statement, remarks that, "he alone
 
 140 VIVISECTION. 
 
 discovers who proves, who converts a speculation into a positive 
 conclusion." But Sir Charles Bell himself repudiated this as 
 the ground of his claim as a discoverer. " In a foreign review 
 of my former papers," he says, " the results have been con- 
 sidered as in favour of experimenting on living animals. They 
 are, on the contrary, deductions from anatomy, and I have had 
 recourse to experiments, not to form my opinions, but to 
 impress them on others. It must be my apology that my 
 utmost powers of persuasion were lost while I urged my state- 
 ments on the ground of anatomy alone." And again, " Experi- 
 ments have never been the means of discovery, and the survey 
 of what has been attempted of late years will prove that the 
 opening of living animals has done more to perpetuate error, 
 than to enforce the just views taken from anatomy and the 
 natural sciences/' 
 
 I have lately conversed on the subject with Mr. Shaw, honorary 
 surgeon of Middlesex Hospital, Sir Charles Bell's friend and 
 relative, and the able editor and expositor of his published 
 researches. Mr. Shaw tells me that Sir Charles always spoke 
 of his discovery as due entirely to anatomical research ; that his 
 experiments were performed with the utmost reluctance, only in 
 confirmation of the discovery he had made ; and that he often 
 referred to the cruelty of needless repetition of experiments. 
 This is quite in keeping with the humane spirit that appears in 
 all the writings of Sir Charles Bell. 
 
 Mr. Shaw, giving a summary of Sir Charles Bell's researches 
 in the " Medico-Chirurgical Review "* for 1842, thus expressed 
 
 * In the same journal (" Medico-Chirurgkal Review," vol. 36, new series), the 
 editor, after describing M. Longet's experiments, says, ' ' We cannot conceal our 
 abhorrent dislike of what the French call vivisection, in which unoffending brutes 
 ar made the victims of the most shocking sufferings, all with th view of 
 advancing .science ! " The reviewer proceeds in a tone of honest indignation, with 
 which every true lover of science and every generous heart will sympathise. In
 
 DR. BARCLAY. 141 
 
 himself as to experiments : " The profession must be well 
 persuaded by this time, what a difficult task it is to obtain 
 any uniform results by having recourse to experiments. And 
 it is scarcely too much to say that if physiologists had waited 
 patiently till cases occurred in practice, such as have actually 
 been met with in very numerous instances, when the pathologi- 
 cal phenomena confirmed the views deduced from anatomy, our 
 convictions would be as strong as after all the multiplied 
 experiments which have been performed." 
 
 Professor Owen says : " It is to be regretted that Sir Charles 
 Bell should have committed himself to the statement that 
 experiments on the lower animals have never been the means 
 of discovery. They have certainly been the means of rectifying 
 such residuum of error as, among his most valuable additions to 
 truth, he bequeathed to the world." This is a very cautious 
 and qualified criticism of Sir Charles Bell's statement. But 
 other physiologists, not on grounds of sentiment or humanity, 
 but purely on review of scientific results, have expressed them- 
 selves with clear decision as to the inutility of vivisection. 
 
 The following passage occurs in the late Dr. Barclay's work 
 on the muscular motions : " In making experiments on live 
 animals, even where the species of respiration is the same as 
 our own, anatomists must often witness phenomena that can 
 be phenomena only of rare occurrence. After considering that 
 the actions of the diaphragm, in ordinary cases, are different 
 from its actions in sneezing and coughing, and these again 
 different from its actions in laughing and hiccup ; after con- 
 sidering that our breathing is varied by heat and cold, by 
 pleasure and pain, by every strong mental emotion, by the 
 
 marked contrast is an article in the "British and Foreign Medico-Chiiurgical 
 Review" for April, 1875, the writer of which brings the subject down to the 
 " Bob Sawyer " level of intellect and taste.. To a journal of such reputation this 
 article is little creditable.
 
 142 VIVISECTION. 
 
 different states of health and disease, by different attitudes, 
 and different exertions, we can hardly suppose that an animal 
 under the influence of horror ; placed in a forced and unnatural 
 attitude ; its viscera exposed to the stimulus of air ; its blood 
 flowing out ; many of its muscles divided by the knife ; and its 
 nervous system driven to violent desultory action from excru- 
 ciating pain, would exhibit the phenomena of ordinary respira- 
 tion. In that situation, its muscles must produce many effects, 
 not only of violent but irregular action ; and not only the 
 muscles usually employed in performing the function, but also 
 the muscles that occasionally are required to act as auxiliaries. 
 If different anatomists, after seeing different species of animals, 
 or different individuals of the same species, respiring under 
 different experiments of torture, were each to conclude that 
 the phenomena produced in these cases were analogous to those 
 of ordinary respiration, their differences of opinion as to motions 
 or ordinary respiration would be immense."* What is here 
 said with regard to respiration, will apply to almost every 
 subject that has been investigated in a similar manner. It is 
 not to be expected that the natural phenomena of the animal 
 economy can be displayed when all the conditions of the parts 
 through which they manifest themselves are completely altered. 
 This opinion cannot be expressed more forcibly than in the 
 words of Celsus : " It is alike unprofitable and cruel," he says, 
 "to lay open with the knife living bodies, so that the art which 
 is designed for the protection and relief of suffering is made to 
 inflict injury, and that of the most atrocious nature. Of the 
 things sought for by these cruel practices, some are altogether 
 beyond the reach of human knowledge, and others could be 
 ascertained without the aid of such wicked means. The appear- 
 ances and conditions of the parts of a living body, thus ex- 
 * " Barclay on the Muscular Motions," p. 298.
 
 UNCERTAINTY OF RESULTS. 143 
 
 amined, must be very different from what they are in their 
 natural state. If, in the entire and uninjured body, we can 
 often, by external observation, perceive remarkable changes, 
 produced from fear, pain, hunger, weariness, and a thousand 
 other affections, how much greater must be the changes induced 
 by the dreadful wounds and cruel mangling of the dissector, in 
 internal parts whose structure is far more delicate, and which 
 are placed in circumstances altogether unusual." * These re- 
 marks were made probably in reference to the inspection of 
 human criminals ; and although, of course, the cruelty is less, 
 they bear with double force against the utility of operations on 
 the lower animals, where the original differences of structure 
 and function must further diminish the chance of any light 
 being thrown upon human physiology. 
 
 The general inutility, therefore, of the examination of living 
 animals arises, I apprehend, not merely from the difficulty of 
 performing such experiments, or from any other contingent 
 cause, but from the method of investigation itself. Nature, 
 when interrogated, reveals only what is her condition at the 
 moment of examination, and hence, although the permanent 
 and unchangeable properties of inanimate matter renders the 
 use of experiment there of paramount value, in living and 
 sentient beings its application is more limited, and its results 
 more uncertain. We cannot depend on the accuracy of con- 
 clusions respecting the natural functions of parts, drawn from 
 experiments which only show what takes place in those un- 
 natural conditions induced by operations. For not only are 
 the ordinary actions of the organs thereby often deranged or 
 destroyed ; but the dreadful extremity of terror or suffering, 
 and many other causes, may conspire to render still wider the 
 
 Celsus, lib. i., p. 8.
 
 144 VIVISECTION. 
 
 difference between the observed and the natural condition of 
 the objects which are examined. 
 
 M. Legallois, a man of great skill and extensive knowledge, 
 remarks in one place of his " Experiments on the Influence of 
 the Nervous System on the Circulation," " J'eus presque autant 
 de resultats differens que d' experiences ; et apres bien des efforts 
 inutiles pour porter la lumiere dans cette tenebreuse question, 
 je pris la partie de 1'abandonner, non sans regret d'y avoir 
 sacrifie" un grand nombre d'animaux, et perdu beaucoup de 
 temps." 
 
 The testimony of another French physiologist, M. Colin, a 
 zealous advocate and extensive practiser of vivisection, is worthy 
 of being noticed. " Certain experiments," he says, " are 
 complex in their nature, when they are applied to important 
 functions, the perturbations of which react on nearly the whole 
 animal economy. Apply your instrument to the brain, or the 
 heart, and immediately you have general and serious disturb- 
 ances of the system, which it is necessary to disengage from 
 those which belong to the direct and local result of the 
 experiment." And again, with regard to the uncertainty of 
 the results obtained, M. Colin says, " Often the same experi- 
 ment repeated twenty times gives twenty different results, even 
 when the animals are placed apparently in the same conditions. 
 It may even happen that the same experiment gives con- 
 tradictory results." M. Colin, after making this admission, 
 speaks of the necessity for multiplying experiments : " It is 
 necessary to recommence in order to learn." The fairer con- 
 clusion would be, with M. Legallois, to desist from a mode of 
 research which experience had shown to be unsatisfactory and 
 fallacious. 
 
 I submit, therefore, these testimonies of practical physi- 
 ologists to the candid consideration of the medical profession.
 
 DR. CARPENTER. 145 
 
 Experience has shown that experiments on living animals are 
 attended by many sources of fallacy. The results obtained by 
 different experimentors are so various, and often so contra- 
 dictory, that there is scarcely a single position laid down by 
 them that can with confidence be adopted. We find that the 
 most opposite results occur at different times from injury of the 
 same organs ; that injury of different organs often produces the 
 same results ; and that the same experiments are not followed 
 by the same results in different subjects. The latter remark is 
 especially applicable to experiments with poison, the effects of 
 which show remarkable variations in different animals. I think 
 that the true value of these experimental researches was rightly 
 estimated by Dr. Pritchard, who in his work on " Insanity " 
 says : " It is well known to all those who have paid attention to 
 the recent progress of physiology, that attempts have been made 
 to ascertain the functions of the different parts of the brain 
 and its appendages, by removing successively parts of these 
 organs from living animals, and noticing the changes which 
 ensued in their actions when thus mutilated. The most cele- 
 brated of these was the series of experiments instituted by M. 
 Fleurens. MM. Magendie and Serres, and more lately Fodera 
 and Bouillaud, have occupied themselves with similar researches. 
 The results obtained by these experiments not only differ in 
 essential respects from each other, but are completely opposed 
 to conclusions deduced by others from inquiries instituted and 
 pursued for several years on a different path. These inquirers 
 are disposed to distrust all the results of vivisections, or experi- 
 ments performed by cutting away the brains of living animals. 
 The method of research which they have pursued is that of 
 minute and accurate observation of pathological facts/' 
 
 Dr. Carpenter says, " On such subjects as the functions of the 
 different parts of the encephalon, I do not believe that experi-
 
 146 VIVISECTION. 
 
 raent can give trustworthy results ; since violence to one part 
 cannot be put in practice without functional disturbance of the 
 rest. Here I consider that a careful anatomical examination of 
 the progressively complicated forms of the encephalon, from 
 fishes up to man the experiments already prepared by nature 
 is far more likely than any number of experiments to eluci- 
 date the problem." And elsewhere : " Almost all our knowledge 
 of the laws of life must be derived from observation only. 
 Experimentation can conduct us very little farther in this 
 inquiry. . . The ever- varying forms of organised beings by 
 which we are surrounded, and the constantly-changing con- 
 ditions in which they exist, present us with such numerous and 
 different combinations of causes and effects, that it must be the 
 fault of our mode of study, if we do not arrive at some tolerably 
 definite conclusion as to their mutual relations. In the language 
 of Cuvier, the different forms of animals may be regarded as so 
 many kinds of experiments ready prepared by nature." 
 
 Cuvier's own words in the passage referred to by Dr. Car- 
 penter, as to the value of Comparative Anatomy, or the 
 observation of the structure and functions of the organs of the 
 lower animals, are worthy of quotation. " Nature has supplied 
 the opportunities of learning that which experiments on the 
 living body never could furnish. It presents us, in the different 
 classes of animals, with nearly all possible combinations of organs, 
 and in all proportions. There are none but have some de- 
 cription of organs by which they are made familiar to us ; and 
 it only suffices to examine closely the effects produced by these 
 combinations, and the results of their partial or total absence, 
 to deduce very probable conclusions as to the nature and use of 
 each organ, and of each form of organ, in man." 
 
 To this I may add, that the observation of abnormal specimens 
 of the human body is also capable of affording conclusions
 
 CELSUS. 147 
 
 which experimenters seek to arrive at by their painful processes. 
 A careful collection and arrangement of such observations 
 would establish facts in physiology with far greater certainty 
 than any experiments could do. In fact, the observation of the 
 human species in its early periods, and in cases of anomalous 
 growth, affords many analogies to " those experiments ready 
 prepared by nature" which Cuvier refers to in comparative 
 anatomy. 
 
 Equally instructive, and elucidatory of physiology, are the 
 teachings of Pathology, or the observation of structure and 
 functions under disease, and the appearances after death. Here 
 again, nature supplies materials for study and for induction, 
 far more varied and more trustworthy than any experiments 
 could give. I am not disputing the conclusiveness of some of 
 these experiments. For example, M. Magendie found that 
 cutting off the eyelids of a rabbit and leaving bare the globe of 
 the eye brought on ophthalmia. MM. Boulay and Colin starved 
 a horse, made an open wound in the throat, and injected some 
 grains of strychnine, and the poor animal died " in character- 
 istic convulsions." M. Flourens removed with a knife some 
 layers of the brain of a bird ; " it immediately manifested a loss 
 of harmony in its movements, it staggered and fell." M. 
 Beclard's " Treatise on Physiology," a standard book of in- 
 struction and reference, both in England and abroad, contains 
 hundreds of similar " experiments," with directions for per- 
 forming them. The operations certainly demonstrate the facts 
 stated. But they are not the less stupid and cruel because they 
 are conclusive. What is here affirmed is, that by clinical and 
 pathological observation the same results could be and are 
 obtained. In the words of Celsus, "Haec cognoscere prudentern 
 medicum, non co3dem sed sanitatem molientein ; idque per 
 misericordiam discere, quod alii dira crudelitate cognoveriiit."
 
 148 VIVISECTION. 
 
 The physician who pursues this system of research, even in the 
 most limited sphere, cannot fail to contribute a larger number 
 of important facts, and to aid more in the solution of the 
 arcana of physiological science, than he could effect by thou- 
 sands of dissections of the lower animals. He will, moreover, 
 have the satisfaction of knowing that, " while endeavouring to 
 save life, and performing offices of mercy, he is acquiring that 
 knowledge which others often vainly seek to obtain while in- 
 flicting death and performing deeds of dire cruelty." 
 
 In regard to the functions of the various parts of the ence- 
 phalon, to discover which a vast proportion of cruel experiments 
 have been made, and are still being made (we regret to say 
 under the sanction of the British Association for the Advance- 
 ment of Science), almost the only accepted facts are due 
 to the observations of medical men, not to the researches of 
 vivisectors. In fact, after all the ghastly records of such ex- 
 periments, the bare recital of which would fill many volumes, 
 we have to fall back upon the results obtained by the humane 
 practitioners of the healing art in their reports of clinical and 
 pathological cases. 
 
 I have given instances of needless cruelty perpetrated by men 
 eminent in science, but there is reason to fear that " the race of 
 wretches," of whom Dr. Johnson speaks, " among the inferior 
 professors of medical knowledge" are not extinct. A few years 
 ago a Yorkshire surgeon published, in a Scarborox;gh news- 
 paper, the report of an experiment of the most revolting cruelty. 
 It is quoted at page 69 of Mr. Fleming's " Prize Essay on 
 Vivisectics." When such a narrative could be unblushingly 
 told by a medical practitioner, and admitted into the columns 
 of an ordinary newspaper, it is to be feared that experiments 
 of this class are not unfrequeut, and that public opinion is not 
 sufficiently awake to their atrocity. We do not wonder at the
 
 MORAL AND SOCIAL EFFECTS OF VIVISECTION. 149 
 
 honest indignation of great-hearted Samuel Johnson. Sad it is 
 that his words should be applicable at all in our days, though 
 we have certainly advanced both in science and humanity. 
 
 Enough has been said to show the existence and the extent of 
 this evil. The question remains, what ought to be done ? 
 
 Any appeal to vivisectors themselves would be in vain. The 
 better sort of them, who are influenced by scientific zeal, no 
 doubt hope that they may succeed in researches which have 
 baffled their predecessors. The lower class of operators are too 
 hardened to listen to any remonstrance. What can we expect 
 from men, of one of whom we read this : " An English student 
 having quitted a German physiological laboratory, unable to 
 bear its horrors, the professor remarked that ' he never found 
 Englishmen who would stop with him, and he supposed (with 
 a sneer) that they thought God would make them suffer the 
 same as the animals.' " An English surgeon, visiting a French 
 laboratory, describes the conduct of the students, in mimicking 
 the cries and moans of the tortured animals in derision, as so 
 revolting, that he quitted the place in disgust. I myself wit- 
 nessed this " tiger-monkey" spirit in Magendie's class. We have 
 not reached that depth in England yet, and we must not risk 
 our schools of medicine being degraded to the continental level. 
 
 An appeal can more hopefully be made to the medical pro- 
 fession at large, the majority of whom acquired their know- 
 ledge before these cruel practices were introduced into our 
 schools of physiology. The number of distinguished men who 
 have recently signed a protest and memorial on the subject, 
 proves that a strong feeling pervades the profession as to the 
 scandal of the present state of things. Some united and official 
 action ought to be taken, so as at least to condemn the abuses 
 of the system. In Ireland this has been partially done. The
 
 150 VIVISECTION. 
 
 Programme of the Practical Course of Institutes of Medicine 
 for 1875, under the joint management of Trinity College, 
 Dublin, and of the College of Physicians, concludes with the 
 significant, " N.B. Vivisections are absolutely prohibited." 
 
 We must not, however, be too sanguine as to the influence 
 of the medical profession, when we read in the Reports of St. 
 Bartholomew's Hospital, vol. ix., the record of the following 
 series of experiments, performed by a physician attached to that 
 school of medicine, and published without eliciting the in- 
 dignant protest of the other medical officers belonging to that 
 hospital. The operator took sixteen cats, and having opened 
 their sides while under the influence of chloroform, tied up their 
 bile ducts, and then left them to expire slowly from the con- 
 sequences of the operation. His professed object was to ascertain 
 the changes in the liver, by examining microscopically the 
 morbid conditions which his experiment had superinduced. 
 He preferred, he tells us, cats to dogs, because dogs have been 
 found to live only from five to ten days, whereas some of his 
 cats lingered for more than three weeks. The first two creatures 
 were fortunate enough to die after two days. The third, he 
 remarked, three days after the operation, " seems to be dying, 
 and lies on its side, mewing." It was "found dead " next day, 
 and a fourth died in four days of prolapse of bowels. A fifth, 
 "a very old white cat," lingered four days. Two were found 
 dead on the seventh day. Of one which survived about a fort- 
 night, it is noted that it was " very feeble ; when tumbled over, 
 has great difficulty in regaining its feet." Two of the poor 
 creatures lingered till the 27th and 29th day, when they were 
 killed. The results of the experiments for any practical purpose 
 I regard as worthless, and the whole affair is an example of 
 pitiless and stupid cruelty. 
 
 It is evident that public opinion outside must be brought to
 
 PROPOSALS FOR RESTRICTING VIVISECTION. 151 
 
 bear for the suppression of atrocities which thus pass without 
 protest from the profession. The late Sir Arthur Helps 
 ("Animals and their Masters," p. 43) says, " It is very little that 
 legislation can do in this matter. We can only rely tfpon the 
 force of enlightened public opinion." He adds that " Women 
 could do a great deal in this matter, as indeed they can in most 
 social affairs. Any man," he says, " known to have practised 
 needless cruelties on animals, should be placed under not only a 
 professional but a social ban." 
 
 " I would not enter on my list of friends 
 (Though graced with polished manners and fine sense, 
 Yet wanting sensibility) the man 
 Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm. " 
 
 How much more are those to be shunned who pass their time 
 in pursuits so repulsive and cruel. "Public opinion," Sir 
 Arthur thought, " would stop many of the cruel and wicked 
 experiments carried on under the sanction of public bodies." 
 
 The late Dr. Bardsley, of Manchester, a man of high moral 
 character as well as professional eminence, suggested that " no 
 experiments should be allowed except under the sanction of the 
 College of Surgeons or Physicians, in either of the three king- 
 doms ; the individuals who wish to institute them specifying to 
 these corporations the nature of the experiments, and their 
 supposed advantages, ere they are permitted to put them in 
 practice." 
 
 This might have been of avail at the time when Dr. Bards- 
 ley proposed it, but would scarcely be a sufficient safeguard 
 now. Some legislative interference is called for, and the only 
 question is as to the mode and extent of the interference. 
 A "Society for the total abolition of vivisection" has been 
 formed, the object of which is to obtain the legal prohibition of
 
 152 VIVISECTION. 
 
 all experiments on live animals. There is no likelihood of this 
 being listened to in Parliament. But the law may be invoked 
 to prevent needless cruelties on the pretext of science. The 
 existing laws against cruelty to animals do not reach the case. 
 We have a new class of offences, req-uiring fresh legislation. 
 Even if the difficulty of obtaining evidence were got over, it 
 is not clear that such practices come within the scope of the 
 Acts now in force, as the failure of the prosecution at Norwich 
 proved. 
 
 ' Professor Haughton, of Dublin, himself a practical physiolo- 
 gist of eminence, proposes that all such experiments should be 
 conducted under the superintendence of a public officer, re- 
 sponsible to public opinion and to the law for his action. These 
 Inspectors of Physiology would hold a post under a Vivisection 
 Act, analogous to that of the Inspectors of Anatomy under the 
 Anatomy Act, a law which has worked well, and is regarded 
 by the medical profession as beneficial. Some check, Professor 
 Haughton thinks, would thus be put to the growth of evils 
 which have brought a cloud over the whole medical profession. 
 
 While the appointment of inspectors might to some extent 
 prevent the introduction of grosser cruelties, I doubt if there 
 would be much result in diminishing the evils already existing. 
 The present laboratories and schools of physiology would pro- 
 bably be allowed to continue under the official supervision. 
 The inspectors would seldom interfere with the teachers in the 
 courses of instruction now adopted. New legislation would be 
 necessary, in order to determine what operations are needless 
 and cruel. Laws cannot precede public opinion, but must be 
 the outgrowth of that opinion. The present duty of all who 
 wish these evils abated, is to diffuse information on the subject, 
 among non-professional as well as professional readers. 
 
 This must be done extensively and without delay, for the evil
 
 SIR THOMAS WATSON'S PROPOSALS. 153 
 
 is increasing, and is likely to increase, from the prominence 
 given to such, researches in our schools of medicine. Let it be 
 remembered that this is a new feature in English medical 
 education. There were no " demonstrations " on living animals 
 at Gruy's, or St. Bartholomew's, or Westminster, or University 
 College, a few years ago ; nor in Dublin or Edinburgh was the 
 practice recognised. The generations trained under such in- 
 fluences must deteriorate in moral and social tone, and the 
 character of the whole profession will be affected by the mis- 
 deeds of the vivisectors. JSFo profession has a larger number of 
 humane and right-hearted men ; and they ought to prevent 
 the discredit of special legislation,* by uniting in some public 
 disapproval of crimes that are committed in the name of medical 
 science. 
 
 Since the foregoing pages were written, and while still open 
 to revision, a brief but important paper has appeared in the 
 " Contemporary Review " for May, 1875, by Sir Thomas "Watson. 
 This paper may be taken to represent the views of the highest 
 class of the medical profession. It is written with the express 
 purpose of " calming disquietude upon the subject of vivisection, 
 which is not unnaturally looked upon in society with horror and 
 disgust, and of showing that, however fearfully it may often 
 have been abused, it may be both lawfully and mercifully 
 
 * A Bill for regulating vivisection lias been presented in the House of Lords 
 by Lord Henniker (Hartismere). It requires registration of places for experi- 
 ment, open to the inspectors of anatomy ; it requires anaesthetics to be used ; 
 and includes under the term vivisection other cruel experiments. This Bill can 
 be objected to by no scientific man honestly desiring to check the abuses of 
 vivisection. It hardly goes far enough, for it will not check barbarities in regis- 
 tered places. (See pp. 121, 122.) I would have preferred special inspectors instead 
 of the inspectors of anatomy. Power is given to a justice of the peace to issue a 
 .search warrant to constables where cruelties are reported in unregistered places. 
 
 L
 
 154 VIVISECTION. 
 
 practised." Sir Thomas lays down the following restrictions 
 and conditions, within which he thinks vivisection may be 
 justified : 
 
 "I.I hold that no vivisections are excusable which are made 
 at random, simply to see what will happen. To justify them at 
 all there must be some definite object in view of a previously 
 instructed mind, some plain question to settle, some important 
 doubt or uncertainty to remove, some hypothesis containing the 
 promise of service to humanity to be confirmed or confuted ; at 
 least some reasonable hope and prospect of resulting benefit. 
 
 "2. I hold that no man is justified in making any painful 
 experiment upon a living creature who does not possess the 
 skill, judgment, intelligence, and previous knowledge requisite 
 to render the experiment successful and instructive. * * * 
 
 " 3. I hold that no teacher or man of science, who by his own 
 previous experiments, or by his absolute knowledge of trust- 
 worthy and conclusive experiments made by others, has 
 thoroughly satisfied himself of the solution of any physiological 
 problem, is justified in repeating the experiments, however 
 mercifully they may be conducted, or even in taking away the 
 animal's life, merely to appease the natural curiosity of a class 
 of students, or of scientific friends and acquaintances ; still less 
 for the sake of display or self-glorification. 
 
 " 4. If the alleged inferences from former experiments are not 
 generally accepted by competent judges as just, or thoroughly 
 established, then a single repetition of the experiments, to settle 
 once for all a disputed point of importance, may reasonably be 
 allowed." 
 
 It is further explained that (except in rare instances, when 
 the manifestation of pain is necessary to the solution of the 
 problem investigated) the operations should be performed under 
 the influence of anaesthetic agents, or immediately after the
 
 VIVISECTION ON THE INCREASE. 155 
 
 sudden decapitation of the animal. The latter class of operations, 
 however, are not strictly cases of vivisection, which means the 
 cutting into live animals for scientific experiment. The use of 
 anaesthetics does not prevent the mutilation or permanent dis- 
 comfort of the victims, and the destruction of the life after 
 experiment in such cases is therefore recommended. 
 
 If the conditions and restrictions advocated by Sir Thomas 
 "Watson were attended to, there would be an end to ninety, or 
 even ninety-nine, out of a hundred experiments, and there would 
 have been no public disquietude or agitation on the subject. 
 But after careful consideration of Sir Thomas Watson's tempe- 
 rate statement, I see no reason to withdraw or modify a single 
 sentence of what I have written. 
 
 The practice of vivisection is not restricted to a very few 
 eminent and capable men of science, and the operations are not 
 confined to the determination of points that invite a crucial or 
 decisive experiment. On the contrary, a wide field of research 
 is thrown open, and incompetent and unqualified operators are 
 tempted to enter upon it. Ascertained facts in physiology are 
 demonstrated before classes of youthful students, and these 
 repetitions, because needless, are cruel and demoralising. 
 English schools of medicine must not be degraded to the level of 
 those continental schools which, till within the last few years, 
 were always spoken of in this country with deserved reprobation. 
 Sir Thomas Watson concludes his paper with these words : 
 "The consolatory thought remains, that in proportion as our 
 knowledge of the functions of the nervous system approaches to 
 completeness will the need of these painful methods of ' inter- 
 rogating nature ' continually lessen, and finally cease." This 
 is a consummation devoutly to be wished, but the prospect of it 
 at present is not promising. The practice of vivisection in this 
 country " has increased, is increasing, and ought to be dimin-
 
 156 VIVISECTION. 
 
 ished." This can be effected best by the influence of public 
 opinion, with full knowledge of the facts of the case. The 
 question is not now whether vivisection is ever justifiable, but 
 whether the present abuses of it are to be tolerated. I believe 
 that the scientific value of this method of research has been 
 exaggerated, and I hold, with the late Dr. Abercrombie and 
 other eminent physicians, that most of the results, for all prac- 
 tical purposes, could be obtained from clinical and pathological 
 study, without experimenting on living animals. I hold also, 
 with Cuvier, Sir Charles Bell, Dr. Carpenter, and other 
 eminent physiologists, that more certain and satisfactory 
 conclusions can be arrived at from anatomy, comparative 
 anatomy, and observation of the human body, in health or in 
 disease, than from vivisection. Let the restrictions, however, 
 proposed by Sir Thomas Watson be endorsed and enforced by 
 the governing bodies of the medical profession, and much will 
 be gained in the cause both of humanity and science.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Abercrombie, Dr., 156 
 
 Abemethy, Mr., 130 
 
 Acts of Parliament against cruelty to 
 animals, 95 
 
 Addison quoted, 22 
 
 Alison, Professor, at Edinburgh, 130 
 
 Anaesthetics, discovery of, 138 ; use of 
 in vivisection, 122 
 
 "Animal World," the, 110 
 
 Animals, anecdotes of, 28 ; fidelity of, 
 35 ; intelligence of, 33 ; interchange 
 of ideas in, 33, 45 ; memory of, 41, 
 46 ; claims of, 48 ; rights of, 12 
 
 Bacon, Lord, 5 
 
 Barclay, Dr., of Edinburgh, on the 
 fallacies of vivisection, 141 
 
 Bardsley, Dr., of Manchester, 151 
 
 Bearing-reins, 69 
 
 Beclard's Physiology, 147 
 
 Bell, Sir Charles, his discoveries not 
 due to vivisection, 139 ; his humane 
 character, 140 
 
 Bentham,Jeremy,on rights of animals, 12 
 
 Bernard, M., his laboratory, 127 
 
 Bianconi, Mr. , on working his cars six 
 days or seven a week, 73 
 
 Bible, various precepts in, and motives 
 from, 17, 18 
 
 Bouillaud, M., of Paris, his experi- 
 ments, 133 
 
 Brachet, M., his experiments, 132 
 
 British Association for the Advance- 
 ment of Science, 119, 148 
 Brutal sports, 73 
 
 Buckland, Frank, on seal fishery, 65 
 Burdett Coutts, The Baroness, 95 
 Butler, Bishop, quoted, 48 
 
 Carpenter, Professor, quoted, 145 
 
 Cattle, slaughtering of, 57 
 
 Cattle, transit of, by rail, road, and 
 sea, 52-56 
 
 Calves, cruel treatment of, 59 
 
 Celsus quoted, 142, 147 
 
 Chalmers, Rev. Dr., humanity as part 
 of Christian ethics, 14 
 
 Cock-fighting, 73 
 
 Colam, Mr., Secretary of R.S.P.C.A..90 
 
 Colin, M., his experiments, 144 
 
 Comparative Anatomy more instruc- 
 tive than vivisection, 146 
 
 Coursing, 81 
 
 Cowper quoted, 20, 36, 85, 105 
 
 Cuvier, Baron, quoted, 146 
 
 Dogs, anecdotes of, 34, 42 
 Drinking-troughs, 114 
 
 Egyptian animal- worship, 11 
 Elephant, memory of, 41 
 Elizabeth, Queen, days of, 83 
 Elliotson, Dr., 133 
 
 Erskine, Lord, man's right a delegated 
 trust, 19
 
 158 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Fallacies of vivisection, 143, 144 
 Fergusson, Sir William, evidence in the 
 
 Norwich case, 126 
 Field sports discussed, 77 
 Fletcher, Dr., of Edinburgh, 130 
 Fleming, Mr., on management of 
 horses, 70 ; his prize essay on vivi- 
 section, 115 ; his work on horse- 
 shoeing, 70 
 Fox-hunters, 85 
 
 Freeman, Mr., on field sports, 77-83 
 French schoolmaster, 109 ; schools of 
 vivisection, 127 
 
 Handbook of the physiological labora- 
 tory, 121 
 
 Hare-hunting, 81 
 
 Harness, improper use of, 68 
 
 Harrowby, Lord, 103 
 
 Harvey, discovery of circulation of the 
 blood, 138 
 
 Haughton, Professor, of Dublin, 152 
 
 Helps, Sir Arthur, quoted, 151 
 
 Hindoo superstition, 11 
 
 Hogarth's Four Stages of Cruelty, 105 ; 
 noble testimony of, 110 
 
 Hogg, James, Ettrick Shepherd, his 
 dogs, 37 
 
 Hoggan, Dr., description of a vivi- 
 section class, 127 
 
 Horses, ill treatment of, 67 
 
 Huber on bees, 26 
 
 Hurlingham pigeon matches, 74 
 
 Infant school lessons, 106 
 Instinct, anecdotes of, 28 ; definitions 
 of, 24 ; relations to reason, 31 
 
 Jewish laws on humanity to animals, 
 
 16 
 
 Johnson, Dr., quoted, 23, 131 
 Jubilee meeting of R.S.P.C.A., 90 
 
 Kirby and Spence's "Entomology," 25 
 
 Ladies' Committee of R.S.P.C.A., 112 
 
 Landseer, Sir Edwin, 37 
 
 Legallois, M., testimony on inutility 
 of vivisection, 144 
 
 Legislation on cruelty to animals, his- 
 tory and progress of, 88 
 
 " Leisure Hour " natural history anec- 
 dotes, 28, 33 
 
 Locke quoted, 41 
 
 Magendie, M., his experiments, 130 
 Magnan, M., his experiments, 125 
 Markham, Dr., prize essay, 118 
 Martin, Richard, M.P. for Galway, 88 
 Martin's Act, 102 
 
 " Medico-Chirurgical Review " quoted, 
 140 
 
 Natural History, study of, in schools 
 
 recommended, 106 
 Norwich prosecution, 125 
 
 Owen, Professor, on the cruelty of 
 repeating experiments, 131 
 
 Paley's "Natural Theology" quoted, 20 
 Pathology more instructive than vivi- 
 section, 147, 156 
 Physiology, schools of, 120 
 Pope, Mr., quoted, 23, 108 
 Poultry, cruel treatment of, 61 
 Press, honourable part taken by, 101 ; 
 progress in public opinion since 
 " Humanity Dick's" days, 101 
 Pritchard, Dr., on inutility of vivi- 
 section, 145 
 
 Prosecutors and witnesses, hints to, 
 104 
 
 Roman amphitheatre, sports of, 11 
 
 Sabbath, right of animals to rest on, 72 
 Schiff, Professor, at Florence, 123 
 School training, 108 
 Scott, Sir Walter, quoted, 35
 
 INDEX. 
 
 159 
 
 Seal-hunting described, 63 
 
 Shakespeare quoted, 62, 109 
 
 Shaw, Mr., of Middlesex Hospital, on 
 the fallacies of vivisection, 141 
 
 Society, Royal, for Prevention of 
 Cruelty to Animals, history and 
 operations of, 90-95 ; branch so- 
 cieties, 94 
 
 Somerville, Mrs., 123 
 
 Sparrow Clubs, 99 
 
 Tremont Gun Club, Boston, U.S., 75 
 
 Vegetarians, 52 
 
 Victoria, Queen, progress in reign of, 
 86 ; early patronage of R.S.P.C.A., 
 
 91 ; letter read at Jubilee meeting, 
 92 
 
 Vivisection in French veterinary col- 
 leges, 117 ; in London schools, 120 ; 
 fallacies of, 144 ; inutility of, 145 ; 
 moral effects of, 129, 133, 149 
 
 "Watson, Sir Thomas, proposals for 
 restrictions on vivisection, 153 
 
 Wilberforce, William, 89 
 
 Wild animals, 98 
 
 Wilson, Dr. George, on the responsi- 
 bility of man, 14; life of Dr. John 
 Reid, 129 
 
 Windham, Mr., M.P., defending bull- 
 baiting, 77
 
 160 
 
 The following list of passages of 
 or parents, in giving instruction 
 on humanity to animals : 
 
 Scripture may be useful to teachers 
 to the young on subjects bearing 
 
 Genesis viii. 
 
 1 
 
 Psalms cxlvii. 
 
 79 
 
 ix. 
 
 2, 3, 817 
 
 Proverbs iii. 
 
 3, 4 
 
 ,, xxiv. 
 
 31, 32 
 
 vi. 
 
 16, 17 
 
 xxxiii. 
 
 13, 14, 17 
 
 xi. 
 
 17 
 
 Exodus xx. 
 
 810 
 
 xii. 
 
 10 
 
 ,, xxiii. 
 
 5, 12 
 
 ,, xxxi. 
 
 8 
 
 Numbers xxii. 
 
 32 
 
 Ecclesiastes iii. 
 
 1921 
 
 Deuteronomy v. 
 
 14 
 
 Isaiah xl. 
 
 11 
 
 xxii. 
 
 4, 6, 7, 10 
 
 Jeremiah viii. 
 
 7 
 
 XXV. 
 
 4 
 
 xii. 
 
 4 
 
 2 Samuel xii. 
 
 16 
 
 Jonah iv. 
 
 11 
 
 ,, xxii. 
 
 26 
 
 Micah vi. 
 
 8 
 
 Book of Job xii. 
 
 7 10 
 
 Matthew v. 
 
 7 
 
 ,, XXX. 
 
 1 
 
 ,, vi. 
 
 26 
 
 ,, XXXV. 
 
 11 
 
 X. 
 
 29 
 
 ,, xxxviii. 
 
 41 
 
 Luke vi. 
 
 36 
 
 xxxix. 
 
 
 xii. 
 
 6,24 
 
 Psalms viii. 
 
 68 
 
 xiii. 
 
 15 
 
 ,, xviii. 
 
 25 
 
 John x. 
 
 1116 
 
 ,, xxx vi. 
 
 6 
 
 Romans i. 
 
 31 
 
 1. 
 
 1012 
 
 ,, viii. 
 
 22 
 
 civ. 
 
 14, 2429 
 
 Colossians iii. 
 
 12 
 
 ,, cxlv. 
 
 9, 15, 16 
 
 James ii. 
 
 13
 
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