INTERESTING LIBEL ACTION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 15764, 15 May 1913, Page 4

INTERESTING LIBEL ACTION

ANTI-VIVISECTIONIST'S HONOUR JUDOE AND LADY ADVOCATE. (Feoji Odd Own Coehespondent.) LONDON, April .4. The anti-vivisectionista have earned the war into the camp of the vivisectionists, and a lady is conducting her case in person. Miss Lind-at-Hageby, km. general secretary of the Animal Defence and Anti-Vivisection Society =fld editor ci tne Anti-Viviscctionist He-view, seekii to recover damages for alleged libel in respect of two articles in The Pall Mall Gazette signed by Dr Caleb Williams Saleeby, and published on .May 7 and 10, WIH. i'he aefendants are Vv Saleeby, Mr William Waldorf Astor (proprietor of the journal), Mr Itavid Cameron Forrester (printer), and Air James Louis Garvin (editor). The plaintiff, who i 6 conducting her owji case, says that the statements complained of inferred that she was a deliberate and systematic JiaT, and that her anti-vivisection propaganda had been carried on by a systematic campaign of falsehood. Defendants put in various defences, including that of justification. , Miss Lind-af-tfageby, in her opening address, spoke for ten hours, and at the conclusion Mr Justice Bucknill complimented the lady advocate. " Thank you very much for your fine speech)" said tho Judge, and addressing the special jury he said : "1 am sure that you will agree with me that it was a very fine speech." From the oratorical standpoint it was a magnificent effort, and it was Miss Liiul-af'-ilageby's peroration that aroused tho Judge's admiration. Speaking with emotion she stated: "Gentlemen of tho jury, 1 end as I began by saying that this is, in ray life and work, the most serious thing that could be said about me. I have given all I could give to this cause, all J could give, all that any.person can give. I am saying this not to arouse your sympathy or your pity. I am speaking as one human being speaks to another. You have all in your life things that interest you, things that are dear to you, things that are sacred to you, things that are more important to you than money or position or wealth or power. You have beliefs,, you have faiths, and you have opinions. Ton are honest men, and you hold your opinions honestly, and act honestly as far as you can. " Gentlemen, I hold my opinions about vivisection honestly, and as far as in my power lies 1 have acted honestly. I am not an unscrupulous liar; I am not a systematic liar.. I have done even-thing I could do during the last twelve years to make myself efficient: to enable myself to deal with this subject. And I ask you not to be misled because eminent medical men will say that I am entirely wrong. Let us say, for argument's sake, that 1 am wrong. 1 am willing to let time judge. We all make mistakes. The whole evolution of the world is nothing but a, struggle between truth and error. I do not say that \ hold all truth aud that my opponents hold all error;,that would be a mad thing and a disgraceful thing to cay. I may be right or I may be wrong, hut my opinions are honest opinions. 1 ask you to put aside the whole issuo of vivisection as against anti-vivisection, because no one can regret more than I do that tire time of a court of law should be taken up with such a question. I repeat that the issue is not whether vivisection is right and anti-vivisection is wrong. Tho question is; Am I a systematic liar T Have I practised systematic and deliberate falsehood' in my shop in Piccadilly and in my speeches? Dr Saleeby says 1 am a systematic liar; in fact,according to him, I am incapable of speaking the truth or of dealing with this subject in a fair manner. The defendants suggest that I have been doing this thing for profit, and quote from one of my pamphlets. But they use the word profit in a sense f do not accept. You all have things that are dear to you; your opinions, your beliefs, your faith, your religion, or, if you have not religion, your character. You may be offered wealth or gold, or even long life; but you would not for these considerations part with the things that are clear to you; you would not do that for profit. 1 have used the word 'profit' in the Biblical sense; in the sense of the saying 'What shall'it profit a man-if ho gain the whole world and lose his. own soul?' That is, rightly or wrongly, tho kind of sentiment behind my anti-vivt-sectionist campaign and behind the statements I have made. Right at the bottom of my heart and my soul there is a profound spiritual conviction that that which is morally wrong, spiritually retrogressive, cannot in the long run be scientifically right, And I believe that 10, 20, 30, hundreds of years hence it will be found that that which is spiritually right and spiritually beautiful will be physically useful end right." Jn the witness box she retold the incidents of her early career leading her to take up opposition to vivisection. Shebecame honorary secretary to a Swedish Anti-Vivisection Society. In 1901 she came to England, which was the due country where there wes a law regulating vivisection. She became a student at the London School of Medicine for Women, and went to demonstrations at different Loudon hospitals, and there, by her own observation, studied the subject. She let Mr Stephen Coleridge have a statement about the brown dog, which lie read at a meeting in May, 1903. In consequence .it that a libel action was brought by Dr Bayliss against Mr CoJe.ridge, and resulted in a verdict for the plaintiff, with £2000 damages. Witness gave evidence for the defendant in that case. In every case her work was done for love of tho cause, and she received no payment for it. In 1906 a committee was formed to organise her lectures and debates. Three years later it ceased to be a professional affair, and was called the Animal Defence and Anti-Vivisection Society, and she accepted the secretaryship. In 1909 she organised an . international congress dealing with mail's relations to the lower animals. That congress was supported by 50 members of Parliament and 200 medical men. She had been scrupulously careful that nothing should be done in the shop without her knowledge. She brought this action not to make any. money, but to clear herself from these libellous statements. She denied absolutely that she was guilty of lies or falsehood; that her societies had been carried on by means of a systematic campaign of falsehood, or that these societies continued to exist in consequence of systematic campaigns of falsehood. She said that they continued to exist in eonsequence of a vast amount of pain and suffering inflicted in vivisection research. She denied she had made Piccadilly almost impassable to decent people; that she was guilty of any unscrupulous mendacity in carrying on this campaign in Piccadilly; that women and children had to be hurried past her shop; and that it mused great distress or interfered with the general decencies of Piccadilly,' She further denied that the manner' in which the dog was stragged and gagged was in any way identical with that" in which human patients were prepared for surgical operations; and she denied absolutely that she had concealed tho truth about anresthctics as given under the Act of 1876. She had throughout endeavoured to give in the shop window, and had succeeded in giving, a fair and truthful representation of tho whole practice. Among the exhibits in tho window was the pamphlet on "The Brown Dog aud his Memorial," which dealt with tho so-called dog memorial riots in 1908, and the lively medical students of that time. Plaintiff'then went through in detail the particulars of justification, denying all the allegations. A verdict was given for the defendant.