now like to refer to the opinion of Alexander Chalmers in regard to the Abbé Spallanzani. I think it is in the 'Biographical Dictionary.' 5567. You must not rely on our having printed in the Blue Book everything which you have read to us or to which you have referred us in published books; the Commissioners will exercise their discretion with regard to that. I will now ask you, have you said all that you wish to say to the Commission? 5568. What is the nature of that which you have further to address to it ?—It is to show the cruelty and inutility of these practices. 5569. You have put in the references to the various books that you wish us to consider ?-As I have gone on I have done so. 5570. You have exhausted that portion of the subject?—I do not know that I have quite. 5571. Do you know that you have not?-I could not answer decidedly at the present moment; I should like to refer. 5572. Then you mean that you are not able in the course of this present examination to conclude your evidence in that respect ?—I think not quite. 5573. Have you any observations that you are desirous of offering before to-day's examination closes? -No; I would reserve them till another day; I am tired now; my health is not strong, and I am not accustomed to read like this. 5574. At any rate, to-day you are not prepared to * This utterance, of Lord Card well, appears to indicate an intention to suppress evidence.-G. R. J. address any further observations to the Commission ?— If it was a matter of necessity, now or never, I should endeavour to do something. 5575. Then we will ask you to proceed now.Could you not take me on Monday? I make that request. 5576. The arrangements of the Commission do not enable us to meet on Monday, or on any future day ?* 5577. If you have any observations that you wish to address to us now, we wish you to proceed with them? —I have given my reasons for not doing so. I could hardly do justice, I think, to the Society and my clients if I went on now. (The Witness withdrew.) Adjourned. *The Public will judge whether, or not, this and the immediately foregoing statements and questions of the Chairman were calculated to bring the evidence to a premature conclusion.-G. R. J. THIRD DAY'S EVIDENCE. DECEMBER 20, 1875. Present: The Right Hon. VISCOUNT CARDWELL in the Chair. Sir J. B. KARSLAKE, M.P. THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY, Esq. JOHN ERIC ERICHSEN, Esq. RICHARD HOLT HUTTON, Esq. N. BAKER, Esq., Secretary. Mr. GEORGE RICHARD JESSE recalled, and further examined. 6418. The Chairman: When your last examination closed, we understood that you wished to say something more?—Yes. 6419. Will you be so good as to tell us what it is?— The Society for the Abolition of Vivisection wishes to observe that evidence, such as it has been giving to Her Majesty's Commissioners-of the torture of animals for so-termed scientific objects, the corrupting moral influence generated by these practices, and the errors and fallacies spread abroad by them-it can continue to give, if Her Majesty's Royal Commission is not satisfied that from the mouths of Vivisectors the Society has proved them to be all that it has asserted of them in the opening statement which it made before this Commission. The Society wishes respectfully to inquire of Her Majesty's Commissioners if they are convinced on these points, and if not, what further evidence they require ? 6 ' 6420. The Commission have given you the opportunity which we understood you to ask for,* to give further evidence before us, and we are now assembled for the purpose of hearing you?-Very good. Then we wish to tender in further evidence the opinion of the late Sir Charles Bell, the eminent surgeon, who has said: Anatomy is already looked on with prejudice; 'let not its professors unnecessarily incur the censures ' of the humane. Experiments (vivisections) have never 'been the means of discovery, and the survey of what has been attempted of late years will prove that the opening of living animals has done more to perpetuate error 'than to enforce the just views taken from anatomy and 'the natural motions.' Again, Sir Charles observes: 'In a foreign review of my former papers the results • have been considered in favour of experiments (on living 'animals). They are, on the contrary, deductions from 'anatomy, and I have had recourse to experiments not to 'form my opinions, but to impress them on others. It 'must be my apology that my utmost powers of persuasion were lost, whilst I urged my statements on the ground of 'observation alone.' 6 6 I will now quote from: "The Life and Labours of 'Sir Charles Bell,' by Amédée Pichot, M.D., London: Richard Bentley, New Burlington Street. Publisher in Ordinary to Her Majesty. 1860. At page 68, speaking * The Witness never asked to be examined. He appeared by the invitation of the Commission.-G. R. J. H of one of his ideas, he says: 'He thought more of it 'for his own gratification than for the benefit of others, and at last brought himself to a conviction that the 'pursuit of his discovery was the egotistical gratifica'tion of a scientific vanity. In this point of view he 'looked upon it as an act of barbarism to sacrifice living animals to his fruitless experiments. "I should ""be writing," he said to his brother, "but I cannot ""proceed without making some experiments which 6.66 6.66 6.66 6.66 are so unpleasant to make that I defer them. "You will think me silly, but I cannot perfectly con"vince myself that I am authorised in nature or in religion to do these cruelties. For what? For a little egotism or self-aggrandisement. And yet what are my experiments in comparison with those which "are daily done for nothing?" This sensibility made 'Sir Astley Cooper smile, for to his human autopsies ' he added hecatombs of animals. Fortunately, too, it ' did not prevent Charles Bell from becoming a brilliant operator. His "System of Operative Surgery" (a 'work published in 1807, which has gone through 'three editions), contained no description of an opera'tion he had not himself performed: from "bleeding "in the arm, to lithotomy with the knife alone; from "tying the umbilical cord, to the Cæsarian section."" So, that in his case, one of the most brilliant operators, vivisection was not necessary. At page 127 I find this: 'In his study of the system of circulation, as in that of the nerves, Charles Bell 'was necessarily compelled to make more than one ' experiment in comparative anatomy, but he abstained as much as possible from torturing animals, which 6 |