“I am not able, as I say, to take part in a meeting, but as soon as I am able I intend to preach on the subject, and if you can forward to me any information which will be useful I shall be much obliged to you. Believe me
“Ever my dear Miss Cobbe,
“Yours very faithfully,
“J. Baldwin Brown.”
(Rev. J. B. Brown.)
By this time there were two other Anti-vivisection Societies in London, beside Mr. Jesse’s Society at Macclesfield, all working for total prohibition; and though of course we had various small difficulties and rivalries in the course of time, yet practically we all helped each other and the cause. Eventually the International Society, of which Mr. and Mrs. Adlam were the spirited leaders, coalesced with ours and added to our Committee several of its most valuable members including our present much respected Chairman, Mr. Ernest Bell. The London Anti-vivisection Society, though I expended all my blandishments on it, has never consented to amalgamation, but has done a great work of its own for which we have all reason to hold it in honour.
The revolt against the cruelties of science spread also about this time to the continent. Baron Weber read his Torture Chamber of Science in Dresden, and created thereby a great sensation, followed by the formation of the German League, of which he is President, and the foundation of its organ, the Thier-und-Menschen-Freund, edited by Dr. Paul Förster, now a member of the Reichstag. Other Anti-vivisection Societies were founded then or in subsequent years in Hanover, in Berlin, and in Stockholm. In Copenhagen those devoted friends of animals, M. and Mdme. Lembcké, had long contended vigorously against the local vivisector, Panum. In Italy the Florence Società Protettrice, of which our Queen is Patroness and Countess Baldelli the indefatigable Hon. Sec., has steadily worked against vivisection from its foundation; and so has the Torinese Society of which Dr. Riboli is President and Countess Biandrate Morelli the leading member. In Riga there has also been a persevering movement against Vivisection by the excellent Society of which the Anwalt der Thiere is the (first-class) organ, and Madame V. Schilling the presiding spirit.
In short, by the end of the decade, though we had been so cruelly defeated, we were conscious that our movement had extended and had become to all appearance one of those permanent agitations, which, once begun, go on till the abuses which aroused them are abolished. In America the movement only took definite shape in February, 1883, when, under the auspices of the indefatigable Mrs. White, the American Anti-vivisection Society was founded at Philadelphia; to be followed up by its most flourishing Illinois Branch, carried on with immense spirit by Mrs. Fairchild Allen. Mr. Peabody and Mr. Greene have since established at Boston the New England Anti-vivisection Society, which has already become one of our most powerful allies.
On the 2nd May, Mr. Holt’s Bill for total prohibition was debated in the House of Commons, and on a division there were 83 votes in its favour and 222 against it.
At last the Committee of the Victoria Street Society formally adopted the thoroughgoing policy; and at a Meeting, August 7th, 1878, resolved “to appeal henceforth to public opinion in favour of the total prohibition of Vivisection.” We then changed our title to that of the Society for Protection of Animals from Vivisection. Dr. Hoggan and his wife, Mrs. Hoggan, M.D., and also Mr. de Fonblanque retired from the Committee with cordial goodwill on both sides, and the Archbishop of York withdrew from the Vice-Presidency. But, beside these losses, I do not believe that we had any others, and there was soon a large batch of fresh recruits of new Members who had long resented our previous half-hearted policy,—as they considered it to have been.