January 1902.—"Time after time has this sacred cause been undermined and betrayed by its professing friends by their reckless habit of making erroneous statements."
March 1902.—"I am quite aware that with many of my opponents in the exclusive total-abolition coterie, the motives that actuate them are far removed from the question of the salvation of the wretched animals, and have their foundation in emotions that seem to me singularly unworthy and petty."
May 1902.—"As representative of the National Society, I have again and again written to the representatives of some of the smaller anti-vivisection societies, protesting in plain terms against their publication of inaccurate statements."
No society could submit to be thus taken to task four times in six months. The Church League writes to him, "What the Church League may or may not think fit to say does not in the very least concern you, who are not a member of the League. Interference in such a matter from an outsider is an obvious impertinence." Such rejoinders are met, in their turn, by angry leaders, "A Stab in the Back," "Stabs in the Back," in the National Society's official journal; and the Hon. Secretary of the London Society, who is a lady, is accused of want of chivalry for Mr. Coleridge. The leader, "A Stab in the Back" (April 1902), is a curious instance of the tone of one anti-vivisection society toward another:—
"The time when a man is assailed by a large section of the press, threatened with violence by laymen, attacked on points relevant by vivisectors and points irrelevant by their supporters, is scarcely the moment that a generous rival would have chosen for hurling a dart; and yet, incredible as it may appear, the Honorary Secretary of another Anti-vivisection Society, seizing an opportunity afforded by an article in the Globe, enters the arena, and, by a letter repudiating any connection with Mr. Coleridge, appears to sanction the unfriendly criticisms expressed in that paper. It needed no chivalry to refrain from writing such a letter. A small amount of good taste would have amply sufficed.... This letter, which will convince the public of nothing but the writer's lack of taste, might well be ignored were it not that it is but one of the many attacks made by members of other societies, either by open statement or innuendo, against the Honorary Secretary of the National Society."
But we cannot wonder at these occasional stabs. For the National Society does not stop at charging other societies with inaccuracy. It makes yet graver charges against them. Here are three made by Mr. Coleridge's society against Miss Cobbe's and Mr. Trist's societies:—
March 1901.—"The February number of the Abolitionist contains a leading article in which allusions are made to subjects that are never discussed by decent people even in private. As the leading organ of the Anti-vivisection movement, we enter our solemn protest against the publication of this unspeakable article, which must inevitably inflict the gravest injury upon our cause."
February 1903.—"It is our duty to inform our readers that Mr. Trist has published the correspondence, but that he has mutilated it, omitting some of his own letters altogether, and excising whole paragraphs of Mr. Stewart's letters."
June 1903.—"Our amiable contemporary, the Abolitionist, is good enough, in a long article in its last issue, to suggest to those preparing the libel action against Mr. Coleridge what are the most vulnerable points in his armour."
Thus divided in policy, and quarrelling among themselves, these societies are still agreed in appealing to the public for approval and for money. Here the London Society's opposition to the National Society comes out clearly. In its annual report (1903) the London Society says:—