CITY POLICE COURT.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 12420, 1 August 1902, Page 7

CITY POLICE COURT.

{ Xhoesday, July 31. i (Before Mr E. H.Cariw, S.M. ) Maintenance.—James Donaldson was charged with disobedience of a maintenance order.— He was sentenced to 14 days' imprisonment, tho warrant not to be issued until August 8, and not issued if the arrears were then paid. —-A similar charge against John Donaldson was adjourned for a week. • Alleged Assault.—John Ogg was charged, on the information of Henry Holland, with having . assaulted the complainant at the bar of the I Provincial Hotel.—There was no appearance (of the complainant-Mr Hanlon, who appeared for the defendant, said tho summons was issued by Mr Irwin, solicitor for the complainant, and Mr Irwjn had told him (Mr Hanlon) that morning that he had told complainant to appear, but the complainant had not turned up. Counsel submitted that tho case should be struck out, and the complainant ordered to pay cosls.-Tho case was dismissed accordingly, and complainant ordered to paySis costs.

Cruelty to a Horse.-Thonias Arlidgo was charged with having, on July 0 at North-East Harbour, cruelly illtreated a. horse by working j it while it had an open sore.-Mr Stilling appears:! for the Society tor the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and Mr Hanlon for tie defendant, who pleaded " Guillv."— Robert A.itken, inspector tor the society, 'stated that on July 15, f r om information received, ho had visited defendant's farm. He had found a chestnut horse lying dead in one of the paddocks. He had then proceeded to the stables, where he had found defendant, who admitted that tho horse was his. 'Witness said there had been complaints made against the defendant for imitating the horse, and defendant admitted having worked it until a short time before. He had been using it for sleighing turnips, aud, the animal becoming weak, he had taken it out of harness. The horso had been worked sines defendant had been on the. farm. There had been a sore on the animal's body, where the harness pad would rest, llin long by 5m wide. Witness could put his stick into the gaping hole in the flesh, and tho sore was full of matter. Defendant had admitted that the sore had been there Since he was last convicted for cruelty to the Bame horse in November. The hcrss was in vcrv low condition, and witness would sav it wa3 a gross case of cruelty to aiiimals.-Mr Hanlon said there was nothing very much he could say in extenuation. There was nothing in the suggestion that the sore was on a part of the bod°y where the harness pad would rest, as no pad was-used at all, and the harness had never rested upon the wound. The wound had undoubtedly been a painful one, and to work the horso m that condition was cruelly, The fact of the harness not touching the wound did not, however, seem to him an answer to the charge, but the defendant was a 'struggling settler, trying to make his way, and doubtless had been hard up for horse flesh. Tho animal in question had got into a bog,' and being unable to extricate itself had died there; that was the reason, of the death.-Mr Stilling poiuted out that deiendant had been convicted in respect to the same horse before, and had been fined Is and costs.-Tlie Magistrate said the leniency seemed to have been thrown away in the previous case. Defendant would be fined £Z and costs (£2 12s). Another charge in respect to the same horse, but of working it on a different date, and two charges against Wm. Peccroal, the defendant's employee, were withdrawn.