the infliction of needless pain, for any purpose; I think it is my duty
to take this opportunity of expressing my regret at a condition of the
law which permits a boy to troll for pike, or set lines with live frog
bait, for idle amusement; and, at the same time, lays the teacher of
that boy open to the penalty of fine and imprisonment, if he uses the
same animal for the purpose of exhibiting one of the most beautiful and
instructive of physiological spectacles, the circulation in the web of
the foot. No one could undertake to affirm that a frog is not
inconvenienced by being wrapped up in a wet rag, and having his toes
tied out; and it cannot be denied that inconvenience is a sort of pain.
But you must not inflict the least pain on a vertebrated animal for
scientific purposes (though you may do a good deal in that way for gain
or for sport) without due licence of the Secretary of State for the
Home Department, granted under the authority of the Vivisection Act.

So it comes about, that, in this present year of grace 1877, two
persons may be charged with cruelty to animals. One has impaled a frog,
and suffered the creature to writhe about in that condition for hours;
the other has pained the animal no more than one of us would be pained
by tying strings round his fingers, and keeping him in the position of
a hydropathic patient. The first offender says "I did it because I find
fishing very amusing," and the magistrate bids him depart in peace;
nay, probably wishes him good sport. The second pleads, "I wanted to
impress a scientific truth, with a distinctness attainable in no other
way, on the minds of my scholars," and the magistrate fines him five
pounds.

I cannot but think that this is an anomalous and not wholly creditable
state of things.