132 ANIMAL EXPERIMENT ATION 



public schools, so that there is no danger of its being indis- 

 criminately practised ; we also believe that the govern- 

 ing bodies of the educational institutions in which it is 

 carried on are perfectly competent to, and as a matter of 

 fact do, exercise such control over its practice that no un- 

 necessary or cruel work of this kind is done. 



The petitioners claim that the existing laws do not cover 

 the case, but they have never tried them to see; and this 

 latter fact means one of two things : either very great negli- 

 gence on their part in not at least trying the present laws, 

 or else a complete absence of the evidence of the cruelty or 

 abuses of the practice of animal experimentation, asser- 

 tions in regard to which have been so freely made. If the 

 present laws are tried and found wanting, after anything 

 like evidence of the existence of abuses has been brought 

 forward, we shall be found active in favoring legislation that 

 will prevent these abuses, but not of the kind presented to 

 you here to-day. 



That we are not alone in believing that the present laws 

 arc sufficient to control cruelty to animals, is well expressed 

 by the legal opinion of Judge Bumpus herewith submitted: 



" A professional engagement prevents my appearing 

 before the committee upon the question of vivisection. 

 Some years since, when district attorney, I had occa- 

 sion to examine that statute relating to cruelty to ani- 

 mals to see whether it was comprehensive enough to 

 cover such cases, and I came to the conclusion that the 

 term employed in that statute of cruel mutilation ' was 

 broader if anything than any law that might be passed 

 which undertakes to lay down any detailed method of 

 who may practise vivisection and how it can be done. 



" An examination of the contemplated statute con- 

 firms these views. Let any doctor be complained of 

 under the present law for cruelly mutilating an animal, 



