THE VIVISECTION CLAMOUR. 
401 
natural increase. It will be safest to assume that it begins 
breeding when thirty years old, and goes on breeding till ninety 
years old, bringing forth six young in the interval, and sur- 
viving till 100 years old. If this be so, after a period of 
from 740 to 750 years, there would be nearly nineteen million 
elephants alive descended from the first pair” 
Now, the above remarks — and they are but a tithe of those 
that could be quoted, and which we trust the reader will look 
out for himself — clearly prove that the amount of cruel 
slaughter which takes place wholesale in Nature, and which is 
really for the benefit of us and the other few who survive in 
the struggle for existence, is of so vast a character that any- 
thing in the nature of vivisection sinks beside it into such utter 
insignificance as to be totally unworthy of observation by the 
philosopher. 
But if we leave these grand aspects of the question, and for 
a moment turn the argument against the anti-vivisectionists, 
what shall we see ? Why, that they who cry out loudest are 
themselves guilty of the most intense cruelty. Which of them 
for instance, will avoid eating a chop, and yet what is that but 
the product of cruelty to animals. The poor little beast first 
has its tail cut off when it is a young animal. Then its testi- 
cles — if it is a male — are cruelly dissected out, without the 
influence of chloroform ; and then when it has reached a fair 
degree of size and fatness it is killed. And if we inquire 
whether this act is performed under chloroform, the mere ques- 
tion excites a smile. Again, if it is a calf that is killed, how 
is the act performed ? Why, most cruelly. Veal is a sort of 
meat which the public like to have well-bled ; it is a so-called 
white meat. Well, the unhappy little calf is torturingly 
allowed to bleed to death. And how many millions of these 
creatures have to suffer in this manner every year ! Again, 
will the anti-vivisectionist not destroy without hesitation all 
bugs, fleas, lice ? Will he not, without the faintest scruple, 
remove and slay with a ruthless hand thousands, nay millions, 
of aphides ; and will he not squash beneath his feet the slug 
and snail that inhabit his garden? Yet surely he will not tell 
us that creatures like Aphis , Limax and Helix are devoid of 
sensation — the latter, indeed, endowed with the most complete 
nervous system. Or will he not hunt the fox, or snare the 
rabbit, or eat his chicken that has been cruelly bled to death 
by the poultry-man, who places its body between his knees and 
slashes a huge knife across its neck, and waits, without the 
slightest scruple of conscience, till the fowl has bled to death ? 
Or is he ignorant of those choice morsels of delicacy known as 
the pate de fois gras ? Does he know what torture these poor 
birds are put to through their whole lives in order that the 
VOL. XY. — NO. LXI. B D 
