“Faithfully yours, Shaftesbury.”
“Bishopthorpe, York,
“November 16th, 1875.
“Dear Miss Cobbe,
“I am quite ready to join the Society for restricting Vivisection. I agree with you; total prohibition would be impossible.
“I am, yours very truly,
“W. Ebor.”
With these names to “conjure with,” as I have said, we found it easy to enrol a goodly company in the ranks of our new Society. Cardinal Manning was one of the first to join us. On the 2nd Dec., 1875, the first Committee meeting was held in the house of Dr. and Mrs. Hoggan, 13, Granville Place, Portman Square, Mr. Stansfeld taking the chair. Mrs. Wedgwood, wife of Mr. Hensleigh Wedgwood and mother of my friend Miss Julia Wedgwood, was present at that first meeting, and (so long as her health permitted,) at those which followed,—a worthy example of “heredity,” since her father and mother, Sir James and Lady Mackintosh, had been among the principal supporters of Richard Martin, and founders of the R.S.P.C.A. At the third meeting of the Committee, on Feb. 18th, 1876, Lord Shaftesbury took the Chair, for the first time, and again he took it on the occasion of a memorable meeting on the 1st of March, but vacated it on the arrival of Archbishop Thomson, who proved to be an admirably efficient Chairman. We had a serious job, that day; that of discussing the “Statement” of our position and objects. I had drafted this Statement in preparation, as well as compiled from the Minutes of Evidence, a series of Extracts exhibiting the extension and abuses of Vivisection; and also evidence regarding Anæsthetics and regarding foreign physiologists. These appendices were all accepted and appear in the pamphlet; but my Statement was most minutely debated, clause for clause, and at last adopted, not without several modifications. After summarising the Report of the Royal Commission which “has been in some respects seriously misconstrued” (I might add, persistently misconstrued ever since) and also Mr. Hutton’s independent Report, in which he desired that the “Household Animals” should be exempted from Vivisection, the Committee carefully criticise this Report and express their confident hope that “a Bill may be introduced immediately by Government to carry out the recommendations of the Commission.” They observe, in conclusion, that they find “a just summary of their sentiments in Mr. Hutton’s expression of his view:—
“‘The measure will not at all satisfy my own conceptions of the needs of the case, unless it result in putting an end to all experiments involving not merely torture but anything at all approaching thereto.’”
Such was our attitude at that memorable date when we commenced the regular steady work which has now gone on for just 18 years. On the 2nd or 3rd of March I took possession of the offices where so large a part of my life was henceforth to be spent. When my kind colleagues had left me and I locked the outer door of the offices and knew myself to be alone, I resolved very seriously to devote myself, so long as might be needful, to this work of trying to save God’s poor creatures from their intolerable doom; and I resolved “never to go to bed at night leaving a stone unturned which might help to stop Vivisection.” I believe I have kept that resolution. I commend it to other workers.