Sidney Trist

Early activism and pamphlets

Trist began his public career as an anti-vivisection campaigner and pamphleteer. In 1894, he published his first tract, A Birds-Eye View of a Great Question, which argued against vivisection.^[6]

Trist later issued several pamphlets critical of vaccination, particularly the rabies vaccine. These included Pasteurism Discredited and A Rational Cure for Hydrophobia.^[7][8] Other works from this period included The Danger to Hospital Patients in the Practice of Vivisection and A Cloud of Witnesses.^[9][10]

Mark Twain wrote a letter to Trist in 1899 condemning vivisection. Trist circulated the letter in the press and arranged for copies to be printed as a pamphlet by the London Anti-Vivisection Society.^[11]

In 1903, Trist spoke at an anti-vivisection meeting with members of the Church Anti-Vivisection League.^[12] He also spoke at the Fourth Triennial International Congress of the World League Against Vivisection, held at Caxton Hall.^[13]

Editorial and organisational roles

Trist edited the animal welfare periodicals The Animal World and The Animals' Friend.^{[14][15]: 49} He was also secretary of the London Anti-Vivisection Society, later the London and Provincial Anti-Vivisection Society, and editor of its publication, The Animals' Guardian.^[16][17]

Trist was later elected to the committee of Battersea Dogs' Home, where he, according to Hilda Kean, "ensured that its policy of never selling any dog to a vivisector was maintained".^[16]

Trist's advocacy of vegetarianism in the journals he edited alienated some anti-vivisectionists, who considered his position too radical.^[18]

Books and collaborations

In 1901, Trist published Birds and Beasts Within Our Gates: A Book for Animal Lovers.^[19] In 1904, he published Dog Stories, which included works by Émile Zola and an introduction by Jerome K. Jerome.^[20][21] Trist also wrote the preface to Albert Leffingwell's The Vivisection Controversy in 1908.^[22]

In 1911, when 16 bishops and other clergy joined the pro-vivisection Research Defence Society, Trist criticised their decision in a 5,000-word open letter. The letter used imagery of Christ in a laboratory to condemn their position.^[23]

The Under Dog and final works

In 1913, Trist published The Under Dog, an illustrated collection of essays on the treatment of animals by humans.^[15]: 49 In its introduction, he wrote that the essays were intended to "expose to the eyes of humanity the naked horrors which abound in their midst, and to which they are either blind or indifferent".^[15]: 6 The book was reviewed in several newspapers.^[24][25][26] In the same year, he published Tell Me a Story, a collection of animal-themed fiction by various authors.^[27]