The most extreme of the animal rightists are the terrorists, or animal
wrongists. They break into laboratories (a crime approved by 84% of the
activists in Scott Plous’s survey), vandalize them and steal research
animals, and sometimes bomb them or burn them down.
The Victorian antivivisectionists used to throw vitriol. If you have eaten a
hamburger recently, wearing goggles in public is advised.
Vitriol, in this sense, is sulfuric acid.
The Victorian idea was to throw it in the face of your enemy’s daughter,
to make her unmarriageable.
copyright 1991, 2023 Jay J.P. Scott
<jay@satirist.org>