IV.] ON ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION IN PHYSIOLOGY. 93 



Home Department, granted under the authority of the 

 Vivisection Act. 



So it comes about, that, in this present year of 

 grace 1877, two persons may be charged with cruelty 

 to animals. One has impaled a frog, and suffered the 

 creature to writhe about in that condition for hours ; 

 the other has pained the animal no more than one of 

 us would be pained by tying strings round his fingers, 

 and keeping him in the position of a hydropathic 

 patient. The first offender says, " I did it because I 

 find fishing very amusing," and the magistrate bids 

 him depart in peace ; nay, probably wishes him good 

 sport. The second pleads, " I wanted to impress a 

 scientific truth, with a distinctness attainable in no 

 other way, on the minds of my scholars," and the 

 magistrate fines him five pounds. 



I cannot but think that this is an anomalous and 

 not wholly creditable state of things. 



