CRUELTY TO A HORSE.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 4 March 1926, Page 5

CRUELTY TO A HORSE.

A MEAT CARTER FINED. Three emaciated, sorry-looking horses and caricatures of man’s noblest friend, stood with hung heads in the yard of the Magistrate’s Court at Christchurch on Monday, and . after they had been inspected by the magistrate their owner was fined £lO for cruelty to one of them. The owner is John Clifford Flaws, meat carter, and he was driving his meat waggon and team of three' this morning when lie was met by Mr J. D. White, inspector for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Mr White observed the condition of one of the trio, which was’ being worked with open sores on its shoulders, and immediately laid a charge. The horses were taken from the waggon, and their owner drove them to the court, where he was charged before Air Widdowson, S.M., with cruelly ill-treating one black mare. He pleaded guilty. Mr White said he had had a good deal of trouble with the man, who did not seem to make any headway with his horses, which’ were in very, poor condition and not-fit to lie worked. Flaws said he was a married man with four children. He was a contractor, but had had a verv hard time during the worst season that had been experienced in Christchurch, and had been able to earn only about £3 10s a week. The three animals were in very poolcondition. with their ribs showing, and one was in a particularly had state, its bones sticking out in sharp points and its back nothing hut a long, sharp ridge. “I have no sympathy with a man who ill-treats horses.’’ said the magistrate. Flaws was allowed a month in which to pay the fine.