There was an influential meeting at Lord Shaftesbury's house last
Saturday, to consider whether the Society for " the protec- tion of animals liable to Vivisection," whose offices are at 1 Victoria Street, Westminster,—the most moderate of the anti- vivisection associations, though it condemns, perhaps too absolutely, every kind of even slightly painful experiment on animals, — should leave the agitation in the hands of those who demand the total abolition of all vivisection, be it under complete anaesthetics or not, or should continue to prosecute its work, and to support the effectual enforcing of the existing Act. It was wisely decided to continue the work, and some liberal subscriptions were promised on the spot towards the expenses of the Society during the next two years. One of the most useful works this Society is doing is the formation of links between the opponents of vivisection in this country and similar societies in Italy, Germany, America, and other countries, and by this means spreading more widely the principle of restricting mere scientific curiosity in the name of humanity. We understand that King Humbert and his Queen have already followed the admirable example of our own Queen, by-cordially accepting the invitation of the anti-Vivisection Society in Florence to become its patrons. In fact, the example of James I., for whose golden age, when deer were vivisected in the park of Hampton Court to please the King and amuse the Royal children, Professor Huxley sighs, seems likely to be little emulated by the Sovereigns of the present day. As Miss Cobbe very justly remarked, James would have been quite as glad to have inspected the vivisection in the pillory of the ears of a consistent Evolutionist, as the vivisection of the deer on whose wretched bodies Harvey demonstrated the circulation of the blood, so that it is injudicious to sigh for the return of James. Even among the crowned heads of Europe, Professor Huxley will find few who celebrate so piously as he does the memory of the heartless pedant whose reign inaugurated the fatal epoch of Stuart cruelties and revolutionary retributions.
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