ANIMALS CONDEMNED TO DEATH.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 2, 3 January 1931, Page 7 (Supplement)

ANIMALS CONDEMNED TO DEATH.

.On the Continent, to a comparatively late period, the lower animals were in all respects amenable to the laws. Domestic animals were tried in the common criminal courts, and their punishment on conviction was death. Wild animals fell under the jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical courts, and their punishment was banishment and death by exorcism and excommunication. The researches of French antiquaries have revealed- the records of 02 processes against animals tried in their courts from 1120 to 1740, when the last trial and execution, that of a cow, took place. Of such executions recorded we may notice that of a bull for killing a girl; of a hoar for killing, and of another for killing and eating a child. Tha first and third cases occurred in the Low Countries, and the second at Macon, in Burgundy. In 1457, a sow and her six young ones, at Lavegny, were charged with having murdered and partly eaten a child. The sow was found guilty and condemned to death, but the pigs were acquitted on account of their youth, the bad example of their mother, and the absence of direct proof of their having been concerned in the eating of the child. In 126G, a pig was burned in Paris for having devoured a child. A judge, at Falaise, condemned a sow to be mutilated in its leg and head, and then to be hanged for having lacerated and killed a child. It was executed in the square of the town dressed in man's clothes. A horse, tried at Dijon, was condemned to death for having feloniously killed a man. At Basle, a cock was tried for having laid an egg.