UNIVERSITY COLLEGE. 185 



circumstances. A cat had been poisoned ' for Scientific 1853. 

 purposes ' before one of the classes. I asked him whether 

 a repetition of this could not be prevented. He said, 

 'Certainly: it must not happen again. It was too bad. 



I shall speak to ,' another Professor on the medical 



side, ' and he will see to it.' Accordingly he spoke to - , 

 who satisfied him somehow that the thing would not 

 recur. He had little notion that the Professor appealed 

 to was and had been performing experiments before his 

 pupils on living dogs and cats. These were of so cruel a 

 nature that I will not describe them. They were detailed 

 to me by a highly respectable surgeon, who had been a 

 student of the class referred to. 



In November a circumstance which showed an un- Dr - Peene's 



egacv'. 



certain interpretation on the part of the College Council 

 of the main principles of the foundation, made my 

 husband look forward with abated confidence to the 

 future of his Professorship. 



During the first years of University College, its prin- 

 ciple of non-interference with religion had been well 

 adhered to ; indeed, we received so many assurances on 

 the subject at distribution speeches, opening lectures, and 

 in many other ways, that no fear was felt, and my husband 

 worked on in the happy conviction that he was aiding the 

 great cause which he had most at heart. But for some 

 little time before this he observed indications that the 

 monetary success of the classes would be held a stronger 

 motive in deciding questions connected with the working 

 of the College, than its fulfilment of the pledges given of 

 thoroughness in instruction and adherence to principle. 

 He told me of these things with some anxiety. He saw, 

 or thought he saw, a more decided tendency to temporise 

 to secure the monetary success of the Institution in other 

 directions ; and in the year 1853 an occurrence fraught 

 with danger to the principle on which it had been esta- 

 blished proved that his fears were well founded. 



