CRUELTY TO A HORSE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19265, 2 March 1926, Page 12

CRUELTY TO A HORSE.

A MEAT GARTER FINED.

[by telegraph.—OWN CORRESPONDENTS. J CHRISTUHURCH. Monday. Three emaciated, sorry-looking horses and caricatures of man's noblest friend, stood with hung heads in tho yard of the Magistrate's Court to-day, 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 ho was met by Mr. D. J. White, inspector for die 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 Mr. Widdowson, S.M., with cruelly ill-treat-ing one black mare. He pleaded guilty. Mr. White said he had had a good leal 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 be worked. Flawi said he was a married nun with four children. , He was a contractor, but had had a very hard time duiing the worst season that had been experfanced in Christcharch and had been able to earn only about £3 10s a week. The three animals were in very poor condition, with their ribs showing, and one was in a particularly bad state, its bones sticking out in sharp points and its back nothing but a long, sharp ridge.

"I have no sympathv with a man who ill-treats horses," said the magistrate. Flaws was allowed a month in which to pay the fine.