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To J. S. Burdon Sanderson   3 May 1875

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

May 3. 1875

My dear Sanderson

I enclose the bill with corrected title & preamble.1 Whether it wd be worth while to have fresh copies printed, thus corrected, I hardly know—

Will you let the Litchfields hear your opinion upon the changed preamble, & how many copies you wd like to have in the present or corrected state.2 I will either immediately send a copy of the bill to the Home Sec. reminding him about Lord Derby;3 or Litchfield will call upon him which I think will be a better plan.

I have recd a circular from the Prevention Cruelty Soc. about their meeting on May 5; but it wd be too great an exertion for me to attend; but I hope that you may be there.4

Yours very sincerely | Ch. Darwin

LS

1
CD and Burdon Sanderson were working on a bill to regulate vivisection; Lyon Playfair had suggested that the bill should have a more humanitarian preamble (Correspondence vol. 23, letter from Lyon Playfair, 29 April 1875, and letter to J. S. Burdon Sanderson, 1 May [1875]).
2
CD’s son-in-law, Richard Buckley Litchfield, was a barrister, and had helped with the drawing up of the bill. In the past, CD had frequently consulted his daughter Henrietta Emma on his own writing style (see, for example, Correspondence vol. 18, letter to H. E. Darwin, [8 February 1870]).
3
Edward Henry Stanley, Lord Derby, had forwarded a letter from CD about the bill to the home secretary, Richard Assheton Cross (Correspondence vol. 23, letter from E. H. Stanley, 17 April 1875).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-9966F,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-9966F