340 HUMANE TREATMENT OF ANIMALS USED IN RESEARCH 
in the press — a masterpiece of publicity. The following abstract recorded the 
event and also her position on the issues at that time. 
London Times, January 26, 1875: “A deputation waited yesterday afternoon 
on the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals at their instruc- 
tion in Jermyn Street to present a memorial to the society on the subject of 
vivisection. The memorial was signed by a great number of persons, many of con- 
siderable rank and influence.” It must, however, be mentioned that several 
eminent names appear on the list of those who were not disposed to agree with 
the Bishop of Norwich, Lord Houghton, Sir William Gull, Sir Henry Maine, Sir 
Moses Montefiore and Messrs. Charles Darwin, Matthew Arnold, and Seymour 
Haden. The deputation consisted of the dowager, Lady Stanley of Alderly, 
the Countess of Minto, Miss Cobbe (to whose exertions the numerous list of sig- 
natures is in a great measure owing), Lord Josceline Percy * * *. 
“The deputation was received by a number of ladies and gentlemen on the 
committee of the society. His Imperial Highness Lucian Bonaparte occupied 
the chair at the commencement of the proceedings but resigned it on the entrance 
of the Earl of Harowby to that nobleman who had been prevented from the 
hearing earlier.” 
“The memorial was read by Mr. John Locke. It was directed against not so 
much the suppression as the restriction of vivisection and commented on the 
enormous extension of the practice in recent years. 
“It was, therefore, urged by the memorialists that the society should at once 
undertake the adoption of such measures as might approve themselves to their 
judgment as most conducive to the promotion of the end in view, namely, the 
restriction of vivisection, and the following were suggested as being perhaps the 
most likely measures to attain the desired ends : 
“By the appointment of a Subcommittee for the Restriction of Vivisection,” 
“By instructing Mr. Colan to undertake as many prosecutions of cases vivisec- 
tion involving severe animal suffering as may prove to come within the scope 
of the existing law. 
“If a bill on the subject were found advisable, it might properly contain other 
provisions such as the prohibition of all painful experiments on animals except 
in authorized laboratories and by registered persons whose experiments should 
also be registered as to number, nature and purpose. 
“The absolute prohibition of all painful experiments as illustrations of 
lectures. 
“All the provisions for such an act would, of course, be carefully weighed by 
Parliament in debate ; and while physiologists would contend for such liberty as 
might be enabled to justify to the conscience of the nation, the Society would 
endeavor to obtain security against its abuse.” 
In closing, Lady Burdette-Coutts remarked, “The practice of vivisection was a 
great and growing evil and it was, in her opinion, terrible to think that the 
young generation should be brought up, as under such tuition they infallibly 
would be brought up, to an insensibility of the feeling of their fellow creatures.” 
Miss Cobbe was clever, unscrupulous, and in a hurry. She did not wait for 
the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals to act. Although 
posing to them as a moderate in January, she later claimed credit for the bill 
introduced 3 months later by Lord Hennicker, although Mr. Hutton, the anti- 
vivisectionist, was given credit in the press for having prepared the bill. The 
two accounts of the matter follow : 
British Medical Journal, May 8, 1875 ; “Lord Hennicker has brought into the 
House of Lords Mr. Hutton’s bill, which is in the main prohibition of experiments 
and destruction of physiological research.” 
Transactions of the Victoria Street Society, 1S80: “May 4, 1875, bill regulating 
vivisection prepared at Miss Cobbe’s request by Sir Frederick Elliott, revised by 
Lord Coleridge, and introduced into the House of Lords by Lord Hennicker.” 
Miss Cobbe apparently played a double role throughout her campaign. She 
first involved the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty by posing as a 
moderate. But, as soon as the royal commission had made its report, she at- 
tempted, through Lord Shaftesbury, to have an antivivisection bill passed in 
the House of Lords. Failing that, she next tried to have such amendments made 
in the bill in the House of Commons but failed. The bill that passed actually 
provided the restrictions on research recommended by her in the memorial which 
she presented to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. 
But this apparently had been planned only as the first step toward her final 
objective to obtain complete suppression of vivisection. This objective was re- 
corded 3 months after the passage of the British act as follows : 
