HOW NOT TO DO IT.
(TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.")
SIR,—I understand that a Congress of representatives of Societies for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals will be held in Paris this summer, on the occasion of the International Exhibition. It is to be hoped that delegates will also be invited from the Societies which have undertaken the special work of preventing the worst of all cruelties to animals, namely, Vivisection. If I do not greatly err, considerable misapprehension exists in the public mind. respecting the work of the older Societies as regards this branch of the subject, and it is highly desirable that the matter should. be cleared up once for all, and that the policy of each should be known to all the world, so that the opponents of vivisection may not bestow their contributions where they can be of no avail for the object they have nearest at heart. The old Societies have an excellent work to do (and generally do it very well), wholly irrespective of that kind of cruelty which claims to be scientific.- They are entirely worthy of support on their original grounds,. and no one could lament more than I should do, were they to languish for lack of public sympathy. At the same time, we need to be informed whether to their praiseworthy efforts to put down the brutalities of drunken carters they add—or do no' -dd—the attempt to check the deliberate torturing of the physiological.. laboratory.
I have just received from Germany a letter which mentions that- Ludwig himself, the arch-vivisector, of Leipzig, is actually a member of the Committee of the Thierschutzverein of that city. Considering that the engines are said never to cease day or night inflating the lungs of the miserable curarised dogs and rabbits on his torture-trough, this eminent gentleman's efforts in the cause of humanity seem to partake rather of the character of a grim kind. of farce. How many other Societies on the Continent may be directed by similarly " merciful " persons I cannot tell, but the- Paris &dile Protectrice has, at all events, shown itself so supine, both as regards the veterinary and the physiological cruelties of France, that we can scarcely do it injustice by supposing that it is guided by men who regard such "chamber sport" much too • " Rundale" is where the farms on an estate are each composed of scattered- pieces of land, allotted according to the quality of the ground in different parts of the property, so mach good land in one place being held with so much mountain or marsh land elsewhere, not conterminous, like farms in England, but in many, fragments of land. reverentially to attempt interference. A rumour is afloat that even a recently-formed provincial Society in England numbers among its supporters certain medical gentlemen who sent in their contributions with the stipulation that the Society should take no action in the matter of Vivisection. To benevolent persons who do not wish to give their subscriptions to a muzzled Society, these
hints may not be useless.—I am, Sir, &c., PHILOZOIST.
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