The Times gave a singularly untrustworthy account of the upshot
of the Vivisection Commissioners' Report in a leading article of this day week. Probably the article was written by some one who had turned over the pages of that Report, but who had not mastered either it or the evidence. The Times asserted that "no instance can be adduced in which the practice of vivisection has been abused," a statement for which there is no authority at all in the Report, while there is a good deal of authority of a directly opposite drift. In point of fact, the Commissioners have carefully refrained from passing any general judgment on the extent of abuse which has prevailed ; indeed, they could hardly have passed any such judgment without going into the history of a great number of painful experiments (like Dr. Mayo's, for example), the responsible authors of which are no longer living, and the details no longer accurately known. And even where the responsible experimenters are living and were under examination by the Commissioners, it would have been a dangerous and difficult thing for a body, the majority of which were laymen, to pass judgment on questions often involving warmly-disputed physiological points. No doubt, different people will judge the evidence differently. We shall be surprised if the majority of those who read the minutes of evidence do not feel convinced that the abases of vivisection, even in the United Kingdom and at the present day, though not so great and serious as had been feared, are still very considerable, and urgently demand legislative interference.
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