1876 THE LAW AS TO VIVISECTION 173 



than was demanded. As a writer in Nature (1876, 

 p. 248) puts it : " The evidence on the strength of 

 which legislation was recommended went beyond the 

 facts, the report went beyond the evidence, the 

 recommendations beyond the report, and the bill, can 

 hardly be said to have gone beyond the recommend- 

 ations, but rather to have contradicted them." 



As to the working of the law, Huxley referred to 

 it the following year in the address, already cited, on 

 " Elementary Instruction in Physiology " (Coll. Essays, 

 iii. 310). 



But while I should object to any experimentation 

 which can justly be called painful, and while as a member 

 of a late Royal Commission I did my best to prevent the 

 infliction of needless pain for any purpose, I think it is 

 my duty to take this opportunity of expressing my regret 

 at a condition of the law which permits a boy to troll for 

 pike or set lines with live frog bait for idle amusement, 

 and at the same time lays the teacher of that boy open to 

 the penalty of fine and imprisonment if he uses the same 

 animal for the purpose of exhibiting one of the most 

 beautiful and instructive of physiological spectacles the 

 circulation in the web of the foot. No one could under- 

 take to affirm that a frog is not inconvenienced by being 

 wrapped up in a wet rag and having his toes tied out, and 

 it cannot be denied tliat inconvenience is a sort of pain. 

 But you must not inflict the least pain on a vertebrated 

 animal for scientific purposes (though you may do a good 

 deal in that way for gain or for sport) without due licence 

 of the Secretary of State for the Home Department, 

 granted under the authority of the Vivisection Act. 



So it comes about that, in this year of grace 1877, two 

 persons may be charged with cruelty to animals. One 

 has impaled a frog, and suffered the creature to writhe 



