"The above caption defines the attitude of the Society to-day toward the practice of `animal experimentation.' In the common phrase, `we want to know,' and we are not to be deterred from what we believe to be a duty by being told from sources more or less reputable that it is none of our business. For many years this Society has been the chief representative in this country and in this city of that large class among our people who feel and cherish an interest in and a sense of humanity for what are called the `dumb animals.' One great life--that of the founder, Henry Bergh--was spent in this service, and prematurely sacrificed in his devotion to these interests. With faults and failures to reach his ideal, with stumbles and falls, freely admitted, but with a persistent purpose to attain it in the end, this Society has never faltered in its effort to follow the path where he had blazed the way. It has never been seriously accused of acting from fear or favour or from other than altruistic motives, and by so doing it has gained and kept the confidence and respect of a great part of what is best in our community. It is far too late in the day for any newspaper or anay group of citizens, no matter how influential in the one case or highly respected in the other, to say to this Society: `You shall not do the work for which you were chartered, and which for forty-five years you have performed in this community.' "Now, what is that work in the present instance? Expressed in its simplest terms, it is a demand that the practice of animal experimentation shall be investigated by the State to determine what is actually being done, and that thereafter legislation shall be had that shall place it under such supervision and restriction as shall insure differentiation between scientific investigation performed for wise and adequate ends and purposes on the one hand, and on the other acts of a painful and brutal character performed from unworthy motives, with no adequate benefit possible as a resultant, and which clearly come within the classification of cruelty. "We submit that this is an eminently fair proposal, and one that should not be opposed by any friend of scientific work, and least of all by the physicians of this city. Yet what do we find? The attitude of that profession is clearly shown by the letter of Mr. Bergh, which we reproduce in our columns, and which will unquestionably receive credence from its frankness and from the eminent name attached to it, now borne by a worthy and devoted descendant of our first president.