Cruelty to Animals. The Speech of Lord Erskine, in the House of Peers, in the Last Session of Parliament, on the Second Reading of the Bill for Preventing Malicious and Wanton Cruelty to Animals. Taken in Short Hand. The Fourth Edition.

Notes

Thomas Erskine, 1st Baron Erskine (1750-1823), took up the cause of animal rights in his retirement, successfully passing this bill against animal cruelty after opposition from the fox-hunting and horse-racing lobbies. Erskine was a lover of animals of all kinds and kept a small menagerie, including a Newfoundland who accompanied him to his legal practice and would sit at his desk in a wig, and two leeches which he named after notable surgeons and kept in a glass jar.