[TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR:] SIR,—To my letter
of last week you append the following com- ments :—"Mr. Hart, then, does not think the operation on the poor girl which was the origin of this correspondence 'cruel'? Assuredly it was not useless,' any more than the original opera- tions of Dr. Ferrier on his lower victims. It was worse than use- less to the subject of it, but so were they." You here attribute a meaning to my words which I repudiate, with the effect of found- ing on them an inference which has been shown to be false in fact. It is, as you know, not the fact that I justified the experi- ment to which you refer ; but that, on the contrary, I condemned it, in words which drew from its author the public acknowledgment that if he had believed it to be likely to be at all injurious, and if he had not had previous consent, it would have been not only unjustifiable, but criminal. 'Throughout my argument, " useful " means, of course, useful to man. I repudiate your inference that experiments which may lawfully be made upon lower animals for the advance of the art and science of saving human life and suffer- ing may also be performed on man. You would agree with me in punishing cannibalism and the mutilation of man. 1 don't know whether you would punish equally, or at all, the daily prac- tice of slaughtering lambs and mutilating horses and pigs for the convenience of man. I have heard of sentimental ladies who treat a lap-dog with more consideration than a baby. I did not expect to see the two lives gravely announced in your columns as of -equal value. I hope this is not one of the necessary moral con- sequences of the opposition to vivisection.—I am, Sir, &c.,
ERNEST HART.
[We took Mr. Hart as meaning by "useful," "useful to man." The experiment on Mary Rafferty was "useful to man," though not to that particular and unfortunate woman. Where does he Ind any assertion of ours that the lives or sufferings of animals are as important as the lives and equal sufferings of human beings? We hold them to be very much less so. But that does not make it the less "cruel" to torture the lower animals for man's benefit.— ED. Spectator.]
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