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To J. S. Burdon Sanderson   22 April [1875]1

Down, | Beckenham, Kent. | Railway Station | Orpington. S.E.R.

Ap 22

My dear Sanderson

Please to read the enclosed note from Huxley. I think I cannot do better than send copies of our bill to Lyon Playfair & Ld Cardwell2   I should think it would be a good thing if you could see the former.

I also enclose a letter from Litchfield, which is important as showing what the Humanitarians intend doing.3 Litchfield’s advice to have our arguments well considered against their propositions seems very good. I have hardly knowledge enough on the subject, but I can see that “places” would interfere with every physiologists excepting in large towns where there are Laboratories; & if “places” are not licensed I cannot see any use in an inspector. The most difficult point seems to me No 2.4 It is pretty clear that the opposite party will soon introduce a bill of some kind5

Yours very sincerely | Ch. Darwin

LS

1
The year is established by the relationship between this letter and the letter from T. H. Huxley, 21 April 1875 (Correspondence vol. 23).
2
In his letter of 21 April 1875 (Correspondence vol. 23), Thomas Henry Huxley mentioned that Playfair had told him that Edward Cardwell was anxious to talk about the bill to regulate vivisection that CD and his friends were proposing.
3
Richard Buckley Litchfield’s letter has not been found. CD had decided to promote first a petition and then a bill to regulate vivisection in response to an anti-vivisection campaign led by Frances Power Cobbe.
4
In the draft bill, clause 2 concerned the mode of application for a licence (see Correspondence vol. 23, Appendix VI, p. 587). CD was evidently concerned about whether persons or places should be licensed (see also ibid., letter from J. S. Burdon Sanderson, 23 April [1875]). The draft bill did not contain any provision for an inspector.
5
On Cobbe’s rival bill, see Correspondence vol. 23, Appendix VI, p. 583.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-9942F,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-9942F