27 JULY 1895, Page 16

[To THE EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR. " ] SIR,—As Rev. John Vaughan

is fond of quoting Newman, it will startle him no doubt to read the following passage which does bear upon vivisection, from Newman's "Sermon on the Crucifixion," republished in 1878. The italics are mine :-- " Consider how very horrible it is to read the accounts which sometimes meet us of cruelties exercised on brute animals. Does it not sometimes make us shudder to hear tell of them, or to read them in some chance publication which we take up ? At one time it is the wanton deed of barbarous and angry owners who ill-treat their cattle, or beasts of burden ; and at another, it is the cold- blooded and calculating act of men of science, who make experiments on brute animals, perhaps merely from a sort of curiosity. I do not like to go into particulars, for many reasons ; but one of those instances which we read of as happening in this day, and which seems more shocking than the rest, is when the poor dumb victim is fastened against a wall, pierced, gashed, and left to linger out its life Now what is it moves our very heart, and sickens us so much at cruelty shown to poor brutes ? I suppose this first, that they have done us no harm ; next, that they have no power whatever of resistance ; it is the cowardice and tyranny of which they are the victims which makes their sufferings so especially touching ; there is something so very dreadful, so satanic in tormenting those who never have harmed us, and who cannot defend themselves, who are utterly in our power, &c." (" Parochial and Plain Sermons," Rivingtons, 1878.) am, Sir, &c., ANTI-VIVISECTOR.