THE LOST DOGS OF FLORENCE.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—I should be glad if I could interest your readers in the state of things now existing in Florence as regards the poor stray dogs which are taken up in the streets. While Count Codronchi, the Prefect of Naples—all honour to him !—is issuing strict orders to his subordinates to enforce the article of the New Code against cruelty to animals, the Syndic of Florence, on the contrary, has miserably yielded to the clamour of the physiologists, and has taken the lost dogs from the care of the Societh Prottettrice, and drafts weekly as many as are required (thirteen is the last report) from the depot to the laboratory. They are even taken, we are assured, straight from the streets to the vivisector's rooms, without a chance of being reclaimed by their owners at the depository. On April 25th an influential deputa- tion waited on the Syndic (Count Guicciardini) to re- monstrate, and presented him with a protest, signed by Sir Augustus Paget, Marchese Incontri, Avvocato Corazzini, Countess Baldelli, and many others ; but after listening to an eloquent appeal by her Excellency Lady Paget, the Syndic replied that the Municipal Giulia had agreed to give the dogs to be vivisected after receiving a deputation from the Department of Science, alleging that dogs had become so scarce in Florence that their agents could neither buy nor steal (!) enough for their demonstrations to students. As honorary secretary of the excellent Florentine SocietA, Prottettrice (the best in Italy, of which our Queen is patroness), Countess Baldelli felt it to be her duty to warn dog-owners of the fate which awaits their dogs if caught straying in the street. For this purpose she printed a set of posters for exhi- bition on the hoardings in the usual way, but the police have refused to allow them to be exposed.
Surely some sense of indignation must be felt against this double tyranny in a country which boasts of having at last achieved its freedom P What an example we should have held this story to be of old-world cruelty and interference with the rights of citizens, had it occurred under the ancien regime !—I am, Sir, &c.,
Hengwrt, Dolgelly, May 27th. FRANCES POWER CommE.
P.S.—The Societi Prottettrice offers to assume the entire expense of the dog depository and of the lethal chamber attached thereto, annually, if the Syndic will renew the contract under which, till recently, they had sole charge of the dogs. The vivisectors to whom the dogs will now be gratuitously given over are the following :—Luciani, Corso (late assistant of Schiff), Lemmi, Torgioni (who exhibits vivisections to a class of young ladies), Oddi (who has recently performed some frightful experiments on the spine), and, lastly, Mantegazza, the man who invented the tormentatore to produce the utmost possible pain and who " larded " the feet of his victims with fine nails ; all, as he frankly tells us, for the apace of a year, con motto amore.
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