HAROLD C. ERNST 155 



practice of vivisection in all public schools in this Com- 

 monwealth, and prohibits the exhibition of the body of an 

 animal on which vivisection has been practised." 1 



DISCUSSION OF THE PROPOSED LAW 



Counsel stated that these laws (House Bills 855 and 856) 

 are proposed to do for this Commonwealth what the Eng- 

 lish law has done for England distinguish the rights of 

 the lower animals against the material interests of man ; 

 and one of the committee asked Professor Sedgwick if the 

 English law was a success or not. Professor Sedgwick 

 answered, " No ; " and a further reply is furnished to the 

 question of the committee, as well as a comment upon 

 the intention of the petitioners, by the following communi- 

 cation from one of the most active anti-vivisection agitators 

 in England, under date of London, January 15, 1901 : 



" Nor will cruelty alone be the vice to invade us. 

 It has a brother demon whose name is lust, which will 

 assuredly raise its hideous head as soon as the old 

 moral barriers are thrown down. Even now in more 

 ways than one it is becoming evident that the princi- 

 ples and practice of vivisection and of sexual immor- 

 ality have a mysterious connection; and that if mercy 

 be struck out of the calendar of human virtues, purity 

 will assuredly go along with it. Then, instead of 

 Christ's ' kingdom of heaven,' in which the ' merciful 

 shall be the blessed,' and the pure in heart shall ' see 

 God,' the coming age will witness the setting up of a 

 reasoned, scientific, Neo- Paganism worse and more foul 

 than any old idolatry of Melkarth or Astarte. . . . 



" Even so, I believe that the divine voice of con- 

 science will finally vindicate its right to rule supreme 

 over all the claims of selfishness and passion ; and that 



1 J. B. Warner, Esq. 



