Men of the Time, eleventh edition/Bergh, Henry

by Thompson Cooper

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BERGH, Henry, born in New York, in 1823. He graduated at Columbia College, studied law, and when quite young wrote several dramas, poems, and tales. In 1863 he was appointed Secretary of Legation at St. Petersburg, and was afterwards Vice-Consul. Returning to America in 1866, he organized the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, to which he has devoted his very considerable fortune, and which has grown to be an important institution, with branches in nearly every State of the Union. In the city of New York the officers of this Society are constituted special policemen with authority to arrest summarily any person who is found committing cruelty to animals.