We accidentally omitted last week to mention the speech before
the Church Congress, in which Mr. Victor Horsley defended the practice of vivisection against Bishop Barry and the Bishop of Manchester, who had attacked it on moral grounds, the latter going much too far. He seemed to admit that the killing of animals was a cruelty only to be defended on grounds of expediency, and was rightly, if roughly,. rebuked by the Bishop of Edinburgh. The killing even of human beings may be lawful—as in war—while their deliberate torture in order to ascertain scientific facts never can be. Mr. Horsley's speech was of a kind unusual in Congresses, being, in fact, an outpouring of abuse against opponents whom he described as " immoral " persons, " either deliberately false, or acting on an absolutely false basis." To Miss Cob be in particular, a woman of large benevolence, who has spent herself and a fortune on a cause which she believes to be one of humanity, he will not allow even an alternative. Not only is her book "a rank imposture," but she has " deliberately and fraudulently misre- presented facts," wilfully concealing that, in experiments. which she denounced, anmsthetics had been used. Miss Cobbe, in a temperate letter in the Times of Tuesday, replied that she would cause careful inquiry to be made, and if she found any painless experiments among those she had quoted, would at once withdraw her charges, though, for herself, she hints, she believes the " anwsthetics " will turn out either to have been curare, which does not prevent pain, or a sham employment of chloroform. This assurance, however, did not satisfy Mr. Horsley, who at once replied in a libellous letter (Wednes- day), implicitly charging Miss Cobbe with "fraud," and even "crime." Mr. Horsley has a perfect right to demand proof of any charge made against those who experiment on living animals ; but his language is altogether outside anything allowed in controversy. What earthly motive can Miss Cobbe have, except the benefit of the animal creation P She goes too- far, perhaps, in her abhorrence, for we fancy that she would prohibit even painless experiment ; but every reformer is apt to exaggerate the evil that has moved him to exertion. She should not for that be libelled with charges which assume and rest on an impossible knowledge of her intention.
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