19 JULY 1879, Page 3

Lord Carnarvon said that of 481 experiments licensed, only sixteen

had been accompanied by appreciable pain. But the question is whether those sixteen ought to have been permitted, and whether they did not involve torture rather than pain. We venture to say that any fresh experiments resembling the thirty-six on dogs described by Dr. Rutherford to the Royal Commission, involve a kind and degree of torture highly dis- 'creditable to the authority who granted the licence. Is Lord Carnarvon quite sure that only sixteen experiments are in ques- tion, and not rather sixteen series of experiments ; that only sixteen sensitive creatures, and not sixteen sets of sensitive creatures, have suffered " appreciable pain." In these matters, there is apt to be a good dehl of confusion between these two very different things.