Miss Frances Power Cobbe was the original organiser and founder in December, 1875, of the National Anti-Vivisection Society which until 1898 bore the Title of the Victoria Street Society for the protection of animals from vivisection.

Many years before, in 1863, there lived at Florence a man who trafficked in torture named Schiff; “among the inferior professors of medical knowledge,” says Dr. Johnson, “is a race of wretches, whose lives are only varied by varieties of cruelty,” and such an one was this miscreant.

Miss Cobbe was then resident at Florence and was the correspondent of the Daily News, and in that paper she denounced the tortures inflicted on animals by this dreadful man, which so affected her generous heart that for the rest of her life her chief preoccupation became the desire to put an end to such abominations.

In 1874 Miss Cobbe drew up a memorial to the Council of the Royal Society for the prevention of cruelty to animals urging upon them “the immediate adoption of such measures as may approve themselves to their judgment as most suitable to promote the end in view, namely, the restriction of vivisection.” And with indefatigable zeal she collected the signatures to it of a very large number of the most distinguished men in England; among them were such names as those of Thomas Carlyle, Alfred Tennyson, Robert Browning, John Morley, John Bright, Leslie Stephen, W. Lecky, B. Jowett, John Ruskin, Dean Stanley, and Canon Liddon.

In view of the fierce advocacy of vivisection to which the present Lord Knutsford has committed himself it is interesting to record that his father Sir Henry Holland’s name appears among the signatories of this memorial.

The Council of the R.S.P.C.A. in 1875 displayed all the familiar characteristics of the Council of to-day. On receiving this notable memorial they adopted the device of promising to appoint a sub-committee to consider the whole question of vivisection. Unlike the sub-committee appointed in 1907 “to consider the whole question of sport” which never sat, it seems that this sub-committee on vivisection really did sit once, after which no more was heard of it.

Mr. Colam the Secretary was sent to call on the leading vivisectors to ask them about their own proceedings; and the Council appear to have imagined that, having asked the persons whose conduct was impugned what they thought about that conduct, their function as representing the Society entrusted with the protection of animals from cruelty was fulfilled.

Miss Cobbe, like many of us to-day, really wanted cruelty to animals stopped, and she was not likely to be satisfied with such a farcical evasion, so she set to work and started the Victoria Street Society, and to her above all others therefore belongs the undying fame and glory of first raising aloft the standard of the imperishable cause for which that Society exists and strives.

In that memorable year of 1875 the great Society in Jermyn Street, misrepresented by a collection of somnolent inefficients, turned their backs on tortured animals and stopped their ears to their cries of agony; and all the subsequent years are strewn with opportunities abandoned and duties neglected which one by one have been undertaken by fresh Societies of earnest souls who would wait no more while the Council in Jermyn Street slept; and that the record should be maintained intact we have seen in the last three years the generous public subscribe an enormous sum of money for the care and cure of our horses at the war, only to discover that the Society is ready to acquiesce when those horses, that are worn out in our service, are sold abroad to the highest bidders!

Miss Cobbe during her long combat against vivisection passed through different phases of opinion as to the wisest parliamentary policy to pursue. At one time she advocated restriction, at another total abolition, and I will not here revive the domestic discussions and differences that were the consequence of the diverse views entertained by equally reputable and earnest workers in the cause. It is enough to recognise and acclaim the fine courage and ability that Miss Cobbe brought to the service of suffering animals, and the splendid edifice of the National Anti-Vivisection Society that was built up from the ground by her capable hands.

She suffered one cruel betrayal when she entrusted to another too ardent controversialist the translation of some German account of a severe vivisection, and discovered, after the publication of the description in English, that her friend had suppressed in the translation the statement in the original that anÆsthetics had been employed.

The ferocious attacks made upon her on that occasion she bore with what philosophy so exasperating a situation permitted.

Miss Cobbe was a remarkable person both in character and appearance, her habiliments were quaint and practical, cut altogether shapelessly with immense buttons symbolising the entire simplicity of her life and habits, her hair was cut off short, and her whole aspect suggested cheerfulness, robustness, and magnanimity. She was masterful in temperament, not always ready to listen with urbanity to opinions she did not share, or to admit that her conclusions could even conceivably have their foundations in doubtful premises. But these very human characteristics in no way diminished the personal affection she inspired in those among whom she moved. She lived a fine courageous life, and when she died, by an appropriate and beautiful coincidence, a dog was the only witness of her last breath.