1860-1869] A Humane Trap 179 



tion of Cruelty to Animals to move in the matter, and a 

 prize was offered for the invention of a trap which would be 

 both good and humane. I am afraid, however, her efforts 

 did but little direct good. No trap was invented which was 

 portable, cheap, and effective. Indirectly, by stirring up 

 thought on the subject, some good, it may be hoped, was 

 accomplished. 



I give the following letter here, although she wrote it 

 many years later. Whether it was ever published I cannot 

 remember, but I think it was sent either to the Times or the 

 Spectator. 



SIR, 



Those who sympathise with the sufferings of animals 

 must have felt great satisfaction at the warm interest 

 which has lately been excited on the subject of vivisection. 



There is however a kind of suffering, inflicted not in the 

 cause of science but in that of amusement, which seems 

 nearly forgotten. On every one of the great estates of this 

 country steel traps are being industriously prepared and 

 set to catch the vermin which invade man's privilege of 

 killing the game. 



If we attempt to realize the pain felt by an animal when 

 caught, we must fancy what it would be to have a limb 

 crushed during a whole long night between the iron teeth 

 of a trap, and with the agony increased by attempts to 

 escape. Few men could endure to watch for five minutes 

 an animal thus struggling with a torn and mangled limb; 

 yet on the well-preserved estates throughout the kingdom, 

 thousands of animals thus linger every night, probably for 

 eight or ten hours. 



If it is held that it is degrading to our physiologists to 

 make, and to our medical students to witness, operations 

 upon living animals under anaesthetics, what ought it to be 

 to the gamekeeper, who, night after night, prepares and 

 sets instruments of torture and goes to sleep knowing that, 

 by his means, animals are suffering acute agony until he 

 goes in the morning to release them by killing them ? 



He has however the consciousness that this is done for 



