ngland and of the United
States, alarmed, it may be, by a continually increasing mortality from
cancer, will condemn under severest penalties, the sale for human food
of meat deriveed from animals affected by malignant disease,--no
matter how great may be the pecuniary loss to every slaughtering
establishment and packing-house in either land. The public awakening
to danger that must precede legislation cannot yet be discerned; and
before the national apprehension is aroused and apathy ceases,
probably more than a million lives will be sacrificed to cancer, in
England and America alone.
------------------------------
Note.--"The deaths ascribed to cancer or malignant disease in England
and Wales during 1912, numbered 37,323. The mortality of males was
913 per million living, as compared with 891 in 1911, and that of
females, 1,117, as compared with 1,098. IN THE CASE OF EACH SEX,
THESE RATES ARE THE HIGHEST ON RECORD."--From 75th Report of
Registrar-General, 1914, p. lxxxiii.

CHAPTER XVII

THE FUTURE OF VIVISECTION[1]

[1] Address delivered at Washington, D.C., before the International
Humane Congress, December 10, 1913.

Attempts to forecast the future development of Humanity in any
direction have always possessed for some minds a peculiar
fascination. Plato and Bacon had their visions of a State superior to
that in which they lived; Burton foresaw improvements in the
administration of justice, and the condition of the poorer classes,
which waited for two centuries for some measure of realization; even
Defoe had his list of "projects," some of which, laughed at in their
day, are the realities of our time. No great reform in any direction
was ever effected which had not been the unrealized vision of a
dreamer.

And such dreams are the romance of history. For any one to have
imagined two centuries ago, that the African slave-trade and negro
slavery would some day be condemned by every civilized nation, not
because they were pecuniarily unprofitable, but because they
contravened the conscience of Society and its sense of righteousness,
requierd a faith in the ultimate triumph of justice over greed, that
not one man in ten thousand possessed. For Calvin or Torquemada to
have imagined the coming of a time when the burning of an unbeliever
would not be regarded as pleasing to the Deity, demanded a sublimer
vision than either of them possessed. Custom a