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Oamaru Mail, Volume XIV, Issue 4459, 28 August 1889, Page 4

ITEMS.

Mrs Chamberlain, writes a London correspondent, is taking ap a very Birong, and at the same time very novel, position In London society, and a good deal of curiosity is excited as to the issue. It ia notorious that of late yearß tho tone of conversation, not only between men and women of the " smart" coterie 3, bat between women amongst themselves, has been marked by ideas and expressions which were brought ioto vogue in Paris by the Princess Metternic'n. Many fashionable American ladifs have adopted this habit—as soon as they found it recognised by thec'as3 in which they aspired to move. Mrs Chamberlain has set herself distinctly against this laxity of tone, and it 13 reported c-f her that only a few day 3 ago, finding the conversation of the ladic3 with whom Bbe was having tea not to her likiog she suddenly rose, and withcus a word of exDlanation, left the room, to the astonishment of her hostess, who was a well-known lady of title. The plain English writer in Truth, who is unsparing with tho lssh on the hides of magistrates, writes thu3 : —Often aa I have had to censure magisterial leniency in cases of cruelty to animals, I do not think that I have ever dealt with a more fl 12rant case than one tbifc occurred some few days ago at Halifax. A man—or an anthropomorphic devil— named Fosaey, was convicted of the most atrocious cruelty to his pony. Tho poor beast, out of condition, and suffering from a sore on tho back, being unable to got Fessey's out of a rut in r. new road, tho ruffian beat it for half an hoar till the blood flowed from its nose aud hindquarters; then ho lit a pile of straw under its belly; prevented a bystander, who was moved to come forward by the animal's struggles while the straw was burning, from pntting a Bhoulder to the wheel; and finally attached a horse, which ho bad borrowed, not to tho cart, bat to the pony's head, and nearly pulled its head off. These facts were proved by his own friends, and Foaaey himself avowed that he had intended to "mend or end the condact of the animal." Yet the Halifax Borough Bench positively refused to send this rascal to p-ison, and contented themaelves with inflicting a Sue of L 5, on the ground that " to send him ti. prison might interfere with his business." It ia my deliberate opinion that magistrates who administer the law in this fashion are far worse enemies of the animal" creation than even inhuman monsters like Foaeey, and it ia a pity that

there is no Act under which they can be dealt with.