"If you can provide for the Society's future in your Will, may
we beg of you to do so? If you agree, pray do it now. Thousands
of pounds have been lost to the Society and the Cause by the
fatal procrastination of well-meaning friends. The pity of it!
Legacies should be left in these _exact_ words: 'To the _London_
Anti-vivisection Society.' CAUTION. It is of great importance to
describe very accurately the _Title of this Society_--namely,
THE LONDON ANTI-VIVISECTION SOCIETY--otherwise the benevolent
intentions of the Donor may be frustrated. PLEASE NOTE.--Those
charitable persons who have left money to the Society would do
well to notify the same to the Secretary."
Contrast the tone of this appeal for money with the tone of the
Report:----
"Your Society are glad to note that the Christian Churches are
becoming alarmed at the pretensions of scientific authority....
The Christian laity has been largely uninstructed or misinformed
on this grave question.... Happily, the signs of the times are
propitious; not all of the leaders of religious thought in this
country have succumbed to the dictation and pretensions of the
professors of vivisection ... a base and blatant materialism, a
practice which owes its inception to barbarism, and which has
developed in materialism of the lowest possible order."
Surely such eloquence should avail to tear the money even out of the
hands of the dying, lest the National Society should get it. The
National Society, oddly enough, also says: "CAUTION.--It is of great
importance to describe very accurately the _Title of this
Society_--namely, THE NATIONAL ANTI-VIVISECTION SOCIETY--otherwise
the benevolent intentions of the Donor may be frustrated." I do not
know which of these two societies is the inventor of this phrase.
Still, it is not improbable that the National Society receives more
money than all the smaller societies together. Of course, we cannot
compare the working expenses of an anti-vivisection society with the
working expenses of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
Animals, or the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.
The former of these two societies in one year obtained 8798
convictions; in one month alone, 689 convictions; and it paid the
full costs of committing 34 of the 689 to prison. The Society for
the Prevention of Cruelty to Children has an equally good record. But
an anti-vivisectionist society cannot show results of this kind. Nor
can we compare its working expenses to those of a missionary society;
for the missionaries give direct personal service to their fellow-men.
But we can fairly compare an anti-vivisection society to an
anti-vaccination society or a Church of Christian Science. That is to
say, it is a publishing body. In 1902, the National Society's
expenditure, in round numbers, was £970 on printing and stationery;
£1193 on rent, salaries, and wages; £1255 on books, newspapers,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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