After some friendly discussion it was agreed that the Committee of the R.S.P.C.A. would give the subject their most zealous attention; and a sub-Committee to deal with the matter was accordingly appointed immediately afterwards.
When I drove home to Hereford Square from Jermyn Street that day, I rejoiced to think that I had accomplished a step towards obtaining the protection of the law for the victims of science; and I fully believed that I was free to return to my own literary pursuits and to the journalism which then occupied most of my time. A few days later I was requested to attend (for the occasion only) the first Meeting of the sub-Committee for Vivisection of the R.S.P.C.A. On entering the room my spirits sank, for I saw round the table a number of worthy gentlemen, mostly elderly, but not one of the more distinguished members of their Committee or, (I think), a single Peer or Member of Parliament. In short, they were not the men to take the lead in such a movement and make a bold stand against the claims of science. After a few minutes the Chairman himself asked me: “Whether I could not undertake to get a Bill into Parliament for the object we desired?” As if all my labour with the Memorial had not been spent to make them do this very thing! It was obviously felt by others present that this suggestion was out of place, and I soon retired, leaving the sub-Committee to send Mr. Colam round to make enquiries among the physiologists—a mission which might, perhaps, be represented as a friendly request to be told frankly “whether they were really cruel?” I understood, later, that he was shown a painless vivisection on a cat and offered a glass of sherry; and there (so far as I know or ever heard) the labours of that sub-Committee ended. Mr. Colam afterwards took immense pains to collect evidence from the published works of Vivisectors of the extent and severity of their operations; and this very valuable mass of materials was presented by him some months later to the Royal Commission, and is published in the Blue Book as an Appendix to their Minutes.
I was, of course, miserably disappointed at this stage of affairs, but on the 2nd February, 1875, there appeared in the Morning Post the celebrated letter from Dr. George Hoggan, in which (without naming Claude Bernard) he described what he had himself witnessed in his laboratory when recently working there for several months. This letter was absolutely invaluable to our cause, giving, as it did, reality and firsthand testimony to all we had asserted from books and reports. In the course of it Dr. Hoggan said:—
“I venture to record a little of my own experience in the matter, part of which was gained as an assistant in the laboratory of one of the greatest living experimental physiologists. In that laboratory we sacrificed daily from one to three dogs, besides rabbits and other animals, and after four months’ experience I am of opinion that not one of those experiments on animals was justified or necessary. The idea of the good of humanity was simply out of the question, and would be laughed at, the great aim being to keep up with, or get ahead of, one’s contemporaries in science, even at the price of an incalculable amount of torture needlessly and iniquitously inflicted on the poor animals. During three campaigns I have witnessed many harsh sights, but I think the saddest sight I ever witnessed was when the dogs were brought up from the cellar to the laboratory for sacrifice. Instead of appearing pleased with the change from darkness to light, they seemed seized with horror as soon as they smelt the air of the place, divining, apparently, their approaching fate. They would make friendly advances to each of the three or four persons present, and as far as eyes, ears, and tail could make a mute appeal for mercy eloquent, they tried it in vain.
“Were the feelings of the experimental physiologists not blunted, they could not long continue the practice of vivisection. They are always ready to repudiate any implied want of tender feeling, but I must say that they seldom show much pity; on the contrary, in practice they frequently show the reverse. Hundreds of times I have seen, when an animal writhed with pain and thereby deranged the tissues, during a delicate dissection, instead of being soothed, it would receive a slap and an angry order to be quiet and behave itself. At other times, when an animal had endured great pain for hours without struggling or giving more than an occasional low whine, instead of letting the poor mangled wretch loose to crawl painfully about the place in reserve for another day’s torture, it would receive pity so far that it would be said to have behaved well enough to merit death; and, as a reward, would be killed at once by breaking up the medulla with a needle, or ‘pithing,’ as this operation is called. I have often heard the professor say when one side of an animal had been so mangled and the tissues so obscured by clotted blood that it was difficult to find the part searched for, ‘Why don’t you begin on the other side?’ or ‘Why don’t you take another dog? What is the use of being so economical?’ One of the most revolting features in the laboratory was the custom of giving an animal, on which the professor had completed his experiment, and which had still some life left, to the assistants to practice the finding of arteries, nerves, &c., in the living animal, or for performing what are called fundamental experiments upon it—in other words, repeating those which are recommended in the laboratory hand-books. I am inclined to look upon anæsthetics as the greatest curse to vivisectible animals. They alter too much the normal conditions of life to give accurate results, and they are therefore little depended upon. They, indeed, prove far more efficacious in lulling public feeling towards the vivisectors than pain in the vivisected.”
I had met Dr. Hoggan one day just before this occurrence at Mdme. Bodichon’s house, but I had no idea that he would, or could, bear such valuable testimony; and I have never ceased to feel that in thus nobly coming forward to offer it spontaneously, he struck the greatest blow on our side in the whole battle. Of course I expressed to him all the gratitude I felt, and we thenceforth took counsel frequently as to the policy to be pursued in opposing vivisection.
It soon became evident that if a Bill were to be presented to Parliament that session it must be promoted by some parties other than the Committee of the R.S.P.C.A. Indeed in the following December The Animal World, in a leading article, avowed that “the Royal Society (P.C.A.) is not so entirely unanimous as to desire the passing of any special legislative enactment on this subject” (vivisection). Feeling convinced that some such obstacle was in the way I turned to my friends to see if it might be possible to push on a Bill independently, and with the most kind help of Sir William Hart Dyke (the Conservative whip), it was arranged that a Bill for “Regulating the Practice of Vivisection” should be introduced with the sanction of Government into the House of Lords by Lord Henniker (Lord Hartismere). It is impossible to describe all the anxiety I endured during the interval up to the 4th May, when this Bill was actually presented. Lord Henniker was exceedingly good about it and took much pains with the draft prepared at first by Sir Frederick Elliot, and afterwards completed for Lord Henniker by Mr. Fitzgerald. Lord Coleridge also took great interest in it, and gave most valuable advice, and Mr. Lowe (who afterwards bitterly opposed the almost identical measure of Lord Cross in the Commons), was willing to give this earlier Bill much consideration. I met him one day at luncheon at Airlie Lodge, where were also Lord Henniker, Lady Minto, Lord Airlie and others interested, and the Bill was gone over clause by clause till adjusted to Mr. Lowe’s counsels.
Lord Henniker introduced the Bill thus drafted “for Regulating the Practice of Vivisection” into the House of Lords on the 4th May, 1875; but on the 12th May, to our great surprise another Bill to prevent Abuse in Experiments on Animals was introduced into the House of Commons by Dr. (now Lord) Playfair. On the appearance of this latter Bill, which was understood to be promoted by the physiologists themselves—notably by Dr. Burdon-Sanderson, and by Mr. Charles Darwin—the Government, which had sanctioned Lord Henniker’s Bill, thought it necessary to issue a Royal Commission of Enquiry into the subject before any legislation should be proceeded with. This was done accordingly on the 22nd June, and both Bills were then withdrawn.
The student of this old chapter of the history of the Anti-vivisection Crusade will find both of the above-named Bills (and also the ineffective sketch of what might have been the Bill of the R.S.P.C.A.) in the Appendix to the Report of the Royal Commission, pp. 336–8. Mr. Charles Darwin, in a letter to the Times, April 18th, 1881, said that he “took an active part in trying to get a Bill passed such as would have removed all just cause of complaint, and at the same time have left the physiologists free to pursue their researches,”—a “Bill very different from that which has since been passed.” As Mr. Darwin’s biographer, while reprinting this letter, has not quoted my challenge to him in the Times of the 23rd to point out “in what respect the former Bill is very different from the Act of 1876,” I think it well to cite here the lucid definition of that difference as delineated in the Spectator of May 15th, doubtless by the editor, Mr. Hutton.
“The Vivisection-Restriction Bills.