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Mr Benjamin Sugden on " Vivisection."

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Mr Benjamin Sugden on Vivisection." In The Methodist Times is now proceeding a controversy on "Vivisection," and by no means the least able of the several letters which have appeared, is the following from Mr Benjamin Sugden, of Rhos, who is well-known as a formid- able opponent of vivisection:- To the EDITOR of THE METHODIST TIMES. SIR,-Soine of my relatives, who are Methodists, have sent me "Enquirer's" letter from your edition of the 30th ult., and I, as a Congregation- alist, rejoice greatly that you have published such a letter, and also those which appear in your last issue (September 6th), which is before me now as I write. To me it is a marvellous thing that so many Christian "Enquirers" always appear more willing and ready to side with the scientists, in favour of what is a cruel system, rather than with men equally learned and able, but who with ability and learning, are just and merciful towards every sentient creature, Time and space would fail to tell of the great and good men and women who have spoken or written or worked against vivisec- tion, but time and space would fail to discover one really good and great name comparable to that of Shaftesbury or Manning, Browning or Tennyson, in the ranks of the vivisectors, and I suggest to "Enquirer" that he need not hesitate one moment as to which side he should take, even if his only guide be the names of those for and those against such a cruel method of research. No name, so far as I know, at once good and great has ever been associated with what one of your corres- pondents rightly terms" such devilry." "Enquirer" has listened to many "misstatements" from anti- vivisectionists. He really should give "chapter and verse" for such. Alas? there are few who do speak for the dumb in this respect, but I tell "Enquirer" that it is almost impossible to over- state matters; not one half the horrors of the physiological laboratories, "the hell of animals," has yet been told. "Enquirer" writes as though experiments on human beings were not made in hospitals. What about the cancer-grafting in the hospitals of Paris and Berlin ? What about the cases cited in Dr Ringer's "Handbook of Thera- peutics"? If "Enquirer" really wants chapterand verse for experiments in hospitals and out of them let him read "Dying Scientifically." (Swan Son- nenschein & CO. 2s 6d. post free.) One of our Manchester newspapers, reviewing this work, six years ago, closed by saying, "The book is one which ought to be read; and if the hospital system, which we have thought one of our crowning glories, is not to become our ghastliest shame, it should lead to thorough investigation and root and branch reform." "Noatrociousexperiments" forsooth Were not a well-known professor's ex- periments with scorpions atrocious ? The very object was to see whether, under acutest agony, scorpions wouldcointriit suicide, as some old-wife's fable reported. No pretence of good to humanity was made for the fiendish cruelty inflicted. Were it not too long a story, I could tell" Enquirer" of experiments entailing most atrocious agony per- formed in my native city. 0oes "Enquirer" suppose that animals can be baked and boiled alive, or that nerves can be dissected out and ex- perimented upon, without the result being atrocious suffering? Does he know that the original Cruelty to Animals Bill, which insisted upon the invariable use of anaesthetics, was, in consequence of a memorial to the Home Secretary, signed by from 2,000 to 3,000 scientists and medical men, so altered that anything which hell can devise and human hands can perform on animals may now be done under sanction of Act of Parliament ? So many experiments, said the memorialists, would be useless if anaesthetics were insisted on God grant that by means of THE METHODIST TIMES many eyes may be opened to these secret abominations.—Yours, BENJ. SUGDEN. Vale House, Llandrillo-yn-Rhos, near Colwyn Bay; and Chesham-place, Bowdon, Cheshire.

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