June 1901.—"Our editorial table is buried deep in press cuttings from all parts of the kingdom."
March 1902.—"We employ two press-cutting agencies to send us cuttings from the journals of the whole English-speaking world."
July 1903.—"We start branches in various towns, and send lecturers to speak at working men's clubs and debating societies. All this means a very large expense. We very often issue a pamphlet likely to do good by the tens of thousands. Last year we issued 50,000 copies of the 'Illustrated German Catalogue of Vivisectional Instruments and Appliances.'"
The smaller societies, of course, spend their funds in the same sort of way. Thus the National Canine Defence League says that its anti-vivisection work, the most important of all its works, is earnestly carried forward by (1) The Writer's League, in a ceaseless flow of letters to the press; (2) The circulation of lists of hospitals free from the shameful practice; (3) The publication of twenty-one strong leaflets on the subject; (4) The circulation of 300 copies of a book on the subject. This society in two years sent out 650,000 leaflets and pamphlets; but they were not all of them about experiments on animals. Another Society, in a report published in 1902, enumerates the methods which it employs for "the education of the public at large." These include (a) the publication of literature; (b) the holding of public meetings in all parts of the United Kingdom; (c) the delivery of lectures with or without limelight illustrations; (d) participation in debates even with high scientific authorities; (e) inducing the clergy and ministers of all Churches to deliver sermons dealing with the subject; (f) organisation of a press bureau, through which the newspaper press of the country is watched, and correspondence and articles contributed. This Society has also a van, "the only one of its kind in existence. No sooner is our winter and spring campaign concluded than the van takes up the thread of the work and carries it on through the summer, and it may truly be said that the track of the van across country is white with the literature which the van circulates on its educational mission."
It is evident, from these and the like statements, that these Societies, during the last quarter of a century, have published a vast quantity of literature. We must examine the style of that literature during some recent years, and the arguments which it puts forward. But, before we do this, let us consider what attitude is taken by these Societies, or by well-known members of this or that Society, toward certain problems and interests that closely concern them.
I
They do not hesitate to take advantage of all those improvements of medicine and surgery which have been made by the help of experiments on animals. They denounce the work of the present; but they enjoy all the results of the past, and will enjoy all those of the near future. "If anything of value to medicine has been discovered by vivisection, it would be as absurd to reject it on that account as it would be to abandon Ireland because centuries ago we took it by force." And again: "We are no more morally bound to reject benefits acquired by indefensible means than are the descendants of slaveholders bound to abandon wealth originally acquired by the detestable abomination of slavery." And again, the Animal's Friend (November 1903) takes as further instances the benefits derived from body-snatching, political assassination, and the French Revolution. But, in the matter of experiments on animals, it is the very same men and women who denounce these experiments and who profit by them. What should we say of an anti-slavery reformer who was himself drawing a vast income out of the slave trade?
But there is one gentleman, and, so far as I know, only one, who did carry his opinions into practice. He told the story at a debating meeting—how his little girl had a sore throat, and the doctor wanted to give antitoxin, and he forbade it, and the child recovered. "Of course," he says, "it was only an ordinary sore throat." Truly, a great victory, and a brave deed, to make an experiment on your own sick child.
II
The attitude of these Societies toward sport may seem at first sight purely negative; but it is worth study. I have the honour of knowing a very eminent physiologist who will never shoot, because he thinks it cruel—a man much abused by the National Society. And Lord Llangattock, the President of that Society, is well known as an a "ardent sportsman."