PROTECTION OF DUMB ANIMALS. An Example from Wanganui.

Free Lance, Volume II, Issue 97, 10 May 1902, Page 8

PROTECTION OF DUMB ANIMALS. An Example from Wanganui.

STIPENDIARY Magistrate Kettle would be a real boon to the Wellington branch of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. That small section of the community which amuses itself by starving animals, beating them into helplessness, and generally killing time by killing them with torture, would probably hate the man who has the temeri y to say that cruelty is cruelty and not "necessity " Following the example from Wellington, a Wanganui man cruelly withheld food from a horse. He had reasonable expectation that, as it had cost a Wellingtonian ss, he himself would be able to go m for the same pastime at the rate of four cases for a pound. • • • But Mr. Kettle boiled over. He almost threatened to send him to gaol. As it was, he fined him forty times the amount that a Wellington magistrate levied for a like offence. Mark that a £10 fine is not the extreme penalty for these cowardly offences. Also mark that no horse which is so useless to a callous owner as to be turned adrift to starve would be worth that amount. Probably, Lt is impossible to touch these stony-hearted }Deople. Their pockets are their only sensitive spots Persons m the colony have already been fined os for expectorating on footpaths. Supposing that to be a usual fine for the offence, cruelty to animals in Wellington is deemed to be as small an offence as the one named Everyone who has any instincts of humanity will admit that the S.P.C.A. is a useful organisation if it has the help of the magistracy. * * * Without that help, its best labours are frustrated Even the City Council does not help it to any alarming extent. We believe the City Council has not a sore-backed, wind-galled, or sore-shouldered horse m its stables, but, nevertheless, it is aiding and abetting cruelty by overloading its trams, not once a week, but a dozen times a day. The overloading of trams is certainly not cruel in comparison with some of the almost unpunished cases heard so much of lately. Still, the example is a bad one The S.P.C.A. brought the Wanganui case to court, and the stipendiary magistrate complimented the society. No Wellington magistrate seems to credit the local bi anch with being much else than a nuisance. # * ■-■ In a country where horses are cheap, many people are apt to regard tliem as mere chattels, and to treat them according to their market value. Mr. Kettle held out the promise of gaol for the next offender against humane principles For a worse case, Wellington Js P told the world the offender was not to blame, and let him go scot free It would simplify matters for the Wellington JsP. if the Department of Justice issued licenses for cruelty at say a maximum fee of ss. Raising, as Mr. Kettle has done, the fee to £10, there are likely to be fewer permits taken out. At least, in his jurisdiction Surely, if magistrates generally realised the deterrent effects they might exercise by merely using the powers they possess to their full extent, they would follow Mr. Kettle's example, and make the price of cruelty a prohibitive one