Professor Ray Lankester concluded his part of the con- troversy
with Miss Cobbe in the Weekly Dispatch concerning M. Pasteur's proposal to kill off the Australian rabbits by chicken-cholera, by saying in the Weekly Dispatch of April 21st that Miss Cobbe is " unable to form a reasonable judgment upon Pasteur's merits and similar objects [? subjects] owing to ignorance," to which Miss Cobbe replied in the Weekly Dispatch of April 28th, that however ignorant she herself may be, the Victorian branch of the Royal Society cannot be supposed to be equally ignorant, and that this Society, after a full discussion, had unanimously adopted a resolution urging the Governments of Australia to " prohibit the introduction of any new disease for the extirpation of rabbits without further investigation." Moreover, a New South Wales Minister had published the fact that he had had letters " from eminent medical men in England," warning him to preserve Australia " from a calamity beside which the rabbit pest would sink into insignificance." Professor Ray Lankester is clearly not on the side of sober science. He represents in this case rash and, as we have before said, even foolhardy experimentation.
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