SELBORNIANA 
83 
passionate crusade against vivisection, and it is not, perhaps, so 
well remembered that she was the first to plead for better treat- 
ment for the unhappy incurable inmates of the workhouses, and 
that it was largely owing to her vigorous advocacy that the Bill 
enabling women to obtain separation from brutal husbands was 
passed into law. 
She was not more than thirty when she published her “Essay 
on the Theory of Intuitive Morals,” and among other works in 
which she set forth the Theistic faith, so strongly held, was 
“ The Peak in Darien,” emphasising the natural reasons for a 
belief in the immortality of the soul. 
Her philanthropic work began in 1858, when she became 
a helpmate to Mary Carpenter in her ragged school work at 
Bristol. Later, she undertook the task of investigating the 
conditions of workhouse life, and was successful in drawing 
public attention to many much-needed reforms. Miss Cobbe 
was also a strong advocate of the franchise for women, writing 
many articles and pamphlets in support of the cause. 
It was in 1863 that she first took up the vivisection question 
in an article published in Fraser’s Magazine, then edited by 
Froude, entitled “ The Rights of i\Ien and the Claims of 
Brutes.” From that date onward she was the soul of the anti- 
vivisection crusade in this country. She founded the Victoria 
Street Society for the Abolition of Vivisection, and for many 
years acted as its honorary secretary, and in her devotion to the 
cause she gave up a lucrative position on a newspaper which 
defended the contrary view. 
On retiring from the Hon. Secretaryship of the Victoria 
Street Society, she received from and through it a subscribed 
testimonial of ^1,000 and an annuity of ;^ioo, to compensate 
her for the sacrifices which she had made on “ the altar of con- 
science ” and duty, and this annuity she subsequently presented 
to the Society itself when Mrs. Yates, of Liverpool, left her a 
large fortune in recognition of her noble eflforts in the cause to 
which she had devoted her life. 
Among her personal friends and correspondents were a large 
number of the leading writers and thinkers of the day, and on 
her eightieth birthday she was presented with an address, signed 
by many of the greatest names in England and America, in 
recognition of the “ strenuous philanthropic activity and the 
high moral purpose ” which had pervaded the whole of her long 
life. 
Mr. Grant Duff gives an amusingly characteristic anecdote 
of Miss Cobbe in the recently issued volume of his Diary. 
Mr. Kegan Paul told the narrator that he had fallen in deep 
disgrace with the lady for alluding to “ the lower animals.” 
“ Lower animals,” she exclaimed, “ I don’t admit such a term, 
unless, indeed, you refer to married men.” For most of this 
notice of our esteemed contributor we are indebted to The 
Daily Chronicle. 
