Miss Cobbe was a remarkable person both in character and appearance, her habiliments were quaint and practical, cut altogether shapelessly with immense buttons symbolising the entire simplicity of her life and habits, her hair was cut off short, and her whole aspect suggested cheerfulness, robustness, and magnanimity. She was masterful in temperament, not always ready to listen with urbanity to opinions she did not share, or to admit that her conclusions could even conceivably have their foundations in doubtful premises. But these very human characteristics in no way diminished the personal affection she inspired in those among whom she moved. She lived a fine courageous life, and when she died, by an appropriate and beautiful coincidence, a dog was the only witness of her last breath.
CHAPTER III: CARDINAL MANNING
VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE NATIONAL ANTI-VIVISECTION SOCIETY
Cardinal Manning was among the early supporters of the Anti-Vivisection movement, and was a Vice-President of the National Anti-Vivisection Society till his death.
He occasionally attended meetings of the committee at my request to assist the deliberations with his good counsel, and I remember one occasion when Lord Shaftesbury came and took the chair, and both the Cardinal and my father and the Bishop of Oxford were present to assist in an important decision.
I frequently went to the Archbishop’s house at Westminster to consult him; the sumptuous cathedral and palace had not
then been built, and the house at the bottom of Carlisle Place had an air of cold austerity; there were no carpets on the stone staircase, and the large room in which the Cardinal received his visitors had nothing in it but a bare table and a few cushionless chairs. He accepted invitations to dinner from my father, but although he was gracious and courtly, he ate nothing, and it was understood that no attention was to be drawn to this abstinence. He cannot have eaten much anywhere, for he was extremely emaciated.
He did a great service both to the cause of anti-vivisection and to his Church in 1882. It had been spread abroad, by whom, and on what authority, I know not, that the Church of Rome had declined to support those who desired to put down cruel experiments upon animals, and had declared that animals might lawfully be treated like stocks and stones; to this shocking suggestion the Cardinal gave a decisive and authoritative denial at a meeting at Lord Shaftesbury’s House on the 21st of June.
I know that an impression has been made that those whom I represent look, if not with approbation, at least with great indulgence, on the practice of vivisection. I grieve to say that abroad there are a great many (whom I beg leave to say I do not represent) who do favour the practice; but this I do protest, that there is not a religious instinct in nature, nor a religion of nature, nor is there a word in revelation, either in the Old Testament or the New Testament, nor is there to be found in the great theology which I do represent, no, nor in any Act of the Church of which I am a member; no, nor in the lives and utterances of any one of those great servants of that Church who stand as examples, nor is there an authoritative utterance anywhere to be found in favour of vivisection.
And later in the same speech he said:—