THE R.S.P.C.A.
LTo the Editor of the Seszrer.vroa.] SIR,—The present attitude of the majority of the Council of the R.S.P.C.A. and of many persons who have so kindly'given that Society their advice, although they do not subscribe, cannot attend the meetings, and know nothing of the Society's history, 'seems to be that it is quite erroneous to suppose that the R.S.P.C.A. ever. was meant by its founders to oppose ,ruelty when perpetrated in the name of either Science or
sport. The exact contrary is the truth.
At the very first meeting of the Society, in 1825, vivisection
was condemned with these memorable words : " Providence cannot intend that the secrets of Nature should be discovered by means of cruelty." At the annual meeting in 1848 total prohibition of vivisection was put into the programme of the Society's work. In 1863 the Society opened a special fund for the purpose of conducting a campaign against vivisection. In 1875, before the first Royal Commission, the Society's Secretary, Mr. Colam, said that his Society claimed that no person should perform any operation on any animal without first of all rendering it insensible to pain, and that the animal was to be destroyed before the effect of the anaesthetic ceased. En 1899, at its annual meeting, the Society unanimously
gassed a resolution pledging itself to use all available means 13r securing the absolute prohibition of all painful experiments an animals. Before the second Royal Commission on vivi- section the Society declared by its representatives, one of whom was Lord Banbury, that : " The R.S.P.C.A. was founded to protect animals generally, and not for the sup- pression of any kind of cruelty in particular." And finally, in the book recording the work of the Society, published in 1924, the chapter on vivisection closes with these words : " The Society deprecates all experiments on animals which cause pain."
I think, therefore, that the present Council seems to be afflicted with invincible ignorance of the origin, the history and the objects for which the Society was founded, and to the Furtherance of which the funds in their charge have been contributed, so far as the question of vivisection is concerned.
In the matter of cruelty done under the name of sport the facts are just the same as in the matter of vivisection. Nothing in the Society's archives from 1825 to the present time can be found that authorizes its managers to regard the cruelties of sport as outside the purview of the Society's proper con- lemnation.
The statement of the Society's representatives before the last Royal Commission of Vivisection remains, unaltered by my act of the members, in which those representatives stated ;hat the Society was founded to protect all animals and " not For the suppression of any kind of cruelty in particular." At the annual meeting of the members in 1906 the following resolution, proposed by myself, was carried at a large meeting at the Mansion House with only two dissentients :—
" That it be an instruction from this general meet ng of the subscribers to this Society that a committee forthwia.prepare a Bill and secure its presentation to Parliament, the object of which shall be to make otter hunting illegal."
From all of which indubitable facts it follows that we who are opposing and criticizing the present Council, or the majority upon it, are the persons who are strenuously carrying forward the ancient and splendid objects of the Society ; that we are asserting the true traditions of the Society handed down through a hundred years of noble endeavour ; that the Council are betraying the sacred trust committed to them ; and pusillanimously bowing down before the vivisectors and the supporters of cruel sports.
I ask every member of the R.S.P.C.A. to look back with pride at the straightforward courageous men and women who fought against all cruelties to all animals all down the last century, and displaying the same indifferences as they did to vested interests, to priests of Science, and to illustrious huntsmen, to join us in our determined assaults upon the entrenched forts of cruelty.—I am, Sir, &c., STEPHEN COLERIDGE.
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