Timeline: Antiquity » Medieval » Renaissance » Age of Enlightenment: Restoration » Augustan » Sensibility » Romantic Age » Victorian Age » Early 20thc.

Spectator Magazine

1884-Feb-16 | D.G., letter to the editor, "The Clergy and Vivisection," Spectator Magazine 57 (1884 Feb 16): 216.

Clergy and Vivisection

D. G.

Letter to the Editor, Spectator Magazine

THE CLERGY AND VIVISECTION.

[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]

SIR,—In your leading article in yesterday's Spectator on "The Oxford Vivisection Vote," you notice, apparently with surprise, the absence of the rural clergy on the occasion of that vote. I, on the contrary, from my own experience, should have been surprised if the clergy had interested themselves in the matter. I have for many years taken part in the proceedings of the Dublin Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and, though we have one Presbyterian clergyman on our Committee, I can assert, speaking broadly, that that Society receives no support whatever from the ecclesiastics of any religion, Roman Catholic or Protestant.

This apparent indifference of the whole body of Christian Clergy in this country to the miseries of animals is remarkable. It is not only that none, or hardly any of them, contributes to the funds of the Society I have named, but I have never heard, and I have never met any one who has ever hear, a single sentence, in a single sermon, by either Roman Catholic or Protestant, inculcating mercy to animals, or pointing out the duty of endeavoring to mitigate their sufferings. On the other hand, the leading newspapers in Dublin are always ready to help us.—I am, Sir, &c., D. G. Dublin, February 10th.