Humanity Against Cruelty to Animals in Historical Literature, Timeline of Animal Rights History

Animal Rights History »» Frances Power Cobbe

1863 | The Rights of Man and the Claims of Beasts

If there be one moral offence which more than another seems directly an offence against God, it is this wanton infliction of pain upon his creatures. He, the Good One, has made them to be happy, but leaves us our awful gift of freedom to use or to misuse towards them. In a word, He places them absolutely in our charge. If we break this trust, and torture them, what is our posture towards Him? Surely as sins of the flesh sink man below humanity, so sins of cruelty throw him into the very converse and antagonism of Deity; he becomes not a mere brute, but a fiend. (Frances Power Cobbe, "The Rights of Man and the Claims of Beasts." Fraser's Magazine [1863-Nov])

1868-75 | London's Hecatombs, The Echo Magazine

Were we to follow them down the long thoroughfares, we should see them growing more tired and terrified, panting from thirst and fear, till at last, with a final sharp turn, they are driven into the purlieus of the slaughter-house. The smell of blood, with wihcih the place is reeking, drives them half mad with terror, while they wait thier own doom. Presently, with more or less skill and cre (or roughness and indifference, as the case may be) the peculiar mode of execution to which each is destined is put in practice; the sunning blow (most mercifiul of all), the severed arteries, and—heretofore—the hideous hanging up to bleed slowly to death. Tehn the harmless life, held by the sad tenure of such a penalty, closes for the poor brute, but not so the consequences of mankind. (Frances Power Cobbe, Re-Echoes [1876], "London's Hecatombs," reprint of article from The Echo Magazine (1868-1875)])

1884 | The Clergy and Vivisection, Spectator Magazine

Two causes have, I believe, hindered the Clergy from taking more universally an interest in this subject. The first is the natural and excusable one of the multitude of charities and agitations always clamouring for their attention. The second is less honourable,—their want of either moral courage or sagacity. (Frances Power Cobbe, "The Clergy and Vivisection, " Spectator Magazine [1884-Apr-19])

If, when the conscience of the nation was first roused on the subject of negro slavery, they had indolently accepted the assurance of the slaveholders that the institution was 'useful,'…and had soothed their flocks by referring complacently to couleur-de-rose reports drawn up from memoranda furnished exclusively by slave-drivers, then their position would have been precisely parallel to that which…[many of the clergy] now occupy. (Frances Power Cobbe, "The Clergy and Vivisection," Spectator Magazine [1884-May-03])

1888 | Illustrations of Vivisection, or, Experiments on Living Animals

Do not refuse to look at these pictures. If you cannot bear to look at them, what must the suffering be to the animals who undergo the cruelties they represent? (Frances Power Cobbe, Illustrations of Vivisection, or, Experiments on Living Animals [1888])

1889 | Vivisection in America, I—How It Is Taught. II—How it is Practiced

Men and Women of America! Suffer us who are laboring to stop vivisection in our own country, to plead with you for its suppression in your younger land, where as yet the new vice of scientific cruelty cannot be deeply rooted…But whether the practice be useful or useless, we ask you to reflect whether it be morally lawful—(not to speak of humane, or generous, or manly)—to seek to relieve our own pains at the cost of such unutterable anguish as has been already inflicted on unoffending creatures in the name of Science? You now know, to a certain extent, what it is that the advocates of vivisection really mean when they ask you to endow "Research." Will you—bearing their experiments in mind—pay them to repeat such cruelties? (France Power Cobbe, Vivisection in America [1889])

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1863-Nov | Frances Power Cobbe, "The Rights of Man and the Claims of Beasts,"Fraser's Magazine for Town and Country [London:1830-1869] 68 (1863 Nov): 586-602 [Online at Animal Rights History, 2003]

ca 1868-1875 | Frances Power Cobbe, London's Hecatombs [Reprint from The Echo "a well-known little evening journal" in Re-Echoes by Frances Power Cobbe (London & Edingurgh, 1876; Digitized by Google, 2006)

1884-Apr 19 | Frances Power Cobbe, letter to the editor, "The Clergy and Vivisection [April]," Spectator [London:1828-] 57 (1884 Apr 19): 517. [Online at Animal Rights History, 2003]

1884-May 03 | Frances Power Cobbe, letter to the editor, "The Clergy and Vivisection[May]," Spectator [London:1828-] 57 (1884 May 03): 582. [Online at Animal Rights History, 2003]

1888 | Frances Power Cobbe, Illustrations of Vivisection, or, Experiments on Living Animals , From the Works of Physiologists...As Reproduced in "Bernard's Martyrs" and Light in Dark Places (Philidelphia: American Anti-Vivisection Society, 1888; Digitized by Google, 2006)

1888 | Frances Power Cobbe, The Scientific Spirit of the Age and Other Pleas and Discussions (Boston, 1888; Digitized by Google, 2007) [Also a London Edition of 1888])

1889 | Frances Power Cobbe and Bryan Benjamin, Vivisection in America I—How It Is Taught. II—How It Is Practiced, 4th ed. (London, 1890; [First Edition: London, 1889] Online at Victorian Women Writers Project, 2000)