CRUELTY ALLEGED

Timaru Herald, Volume CXL, Issue 20260, 8 November 1935, Page 15

CRUELTY ALLEGED

CHARGE AGAINST FARMER COMMITTED FOR TRIAL Pleading not guilty to a charge of having at Beautiful Valley on September 7, omitted to supply sheep -with proper and sufficient feed, Ernest Ackerman Smith, a farmer of Lincoln, was committed for trial by Mr C. R. Orr-Walker, S.M., at the Magistrate’s Court yesterday. Mr W. D. Campbell conducted the case for the prosecution, defendant being represented by Mr W. F. Tracy (Christchurch). Smith elected to be tried by jury. Samuel George Gliddon, inspector for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, said that accused had been farming at Beautiful Valley for 15 years, and had a holding of about 800 acres. On September 6 he visited the farm and inspected the whole of it. Most of the farm .was in brown top which was long and tufty like straw with no sign of green growth. There were between 700 and 800 ewes on the property, 2, 4 and 6-tooth, and these were shockingly thin, with dead sheep lying all over the place. On September 6he had to destroy 10. On September 7 he visited the property with Mr N. M. Orbell and had to destroy seven more sheep. There was no one on the property when he made the visits. He made another visit on September 11 with Messrs Aitken and Prance and a motor lorry was carting the dead sheep away, all the other sheep having been removed tb a padock near the homestead where they had been given oaten sheaf chaff and potatoes. He destroyed four sheep that had been left on the old paddock. On that day he counted 106 dead sheep lving about the place, the number including the 17 he had killed. The sheep that had been removed to the fresh paddock were shockingly thin and the wool was partly off some of them. Witness described another visit to the farm on September 15 when the sheep were still being hand fed. He destroyed one animal and 15, all young sheep, had died. The animals had been scouring and he attributed this to the potatoes. His last visit was on September 22 in company with Mr W. Smith, who destroyed two sheep. Norman McLeod Orbell, retired sheep farmer, described the condition of the sheep and the lack of feed when he visited the property. Defendant rang him at Lincoln on September 10 and told witness that he had sent down hay and chaff for the sheep.

Replying to Mr Tracy witness said that Smith did not say anything about the cattle and horses on the farm. Witness saw cattle on the place and they were in fair condition. Evidence as to the condition of the sheep was given by James C. Aitken, D. M. France, farmer of Levels, Arthur S. Elworthy, farmer of Pareora, and Charles W. Pitt, farmer of Beautiful Valley. Walter Smith, a Timaru veterinary practitioner of 20 years’ experience, gave evidence of visiting the farm and examining sheep. Some of the animals had been dead for several days and the carcases were in very poor condition. The sheep had been undernourished. The first animal he opened was found in a dying state. There was very little food in the internal organs and there was no sign of milk or udder although the ewe had lambed. There was no sign of disease about the ewe, Which in his opinion had reached a dying state through malnutrition. The same remarks applied to a second ewe which was dying and which had had one eye picked out. The live sheep appeared to be in poor condition and improper food had caused some to shed their wool.

Mr Tracy submitted that an essential ingredient of the crime was guilty knowledge. His client had been seriously ill and reports he had received were to the effect that the sheep were in good condition. He asked that the charge be dismissedDefendant’s Evidence Defendant said that before May, 1934 his brother and he jointly owned a farm of 1500 acres at Beautiful Valley but since then it had been divided, witness taking 900 acres. Twelve-hundred ewes and lambs which had been bred at Lincoln were forwarded to Beautiful Valley and with 950 purchased at Tekapo, were left on the farm, it being proposed to take the Lincoln sheep back to Lincoln. On June 11, 1935 he had a stroke as a result of blood pressure and he was left with a weak heart. J. Haskett, who had been 14 years in the employ of was left ■in charge of Beautiful Valley. Witness was unable to see anyone until July when Haskett called on him and suggested taking the Tekapo ewes to Lincoln and leaving the others at Beautiful Valley. The Lincoln ewes, he was told, were in splendid condition, but the Tekapo sheep had foot scald due to walking in long wet grass. All the sheep, with the exception of 600 of the original Lincoln ewes, were taken from Beautiful Valley. Haskett suggested that some of the thinner ewes could do with a little chaff and this was sent down. Witness was informed by the manager of a Christchurch stock firm that there had been a complaint about the sheep at Beautiful Valley. Witness was surprised to know this and he rang Mr Orbell, who was then at Lincoln College, and told him that feed had been despatched to Beautiful Valley. When he asked Haskett about the sheep he was told that they had gone off very suddenly and were unexpectedly lambing. In the past he had several times wintered sheep at Beautiful Valley without hand feeding, them. Commenting on Mr Tracy’s submission the Magistrate said that so far as the evidence had gone there was not proper food on that day and there was a prima facie case to answer. There was a presumption that defendant had the guilty knowledge and this might be rebutted in the proper way. If there was overwhelming incontrovertible evidence that defendant had no knowledge as to the feed for the sheep he would question the use of sending him to trial. It would, he thought, be trespassing on the domain of the jury to dismiss the case at that juncture. Defendant was committed for trial at the next session of the Supreme Court, bail being allowed in his own recognisance of £IOO.

The extent to which Japanese goods were winning markets in British possessions oversees was commented on by Mr Gerald Morrison, on his return to Christchurch from a tour of eight months in England, on the Continent, and ir America (states the Christchurch ‘V ess”) Mr Morrison said that on the return journey he had tried at Colombo, Aden, Suez and Port Said to buy British-: lade silk and cotton goods, but only Japanese goods were available, and it seemed impossible to buy anything British in these lines. The lack of British-made goods war most noticeable, and the Japanese appeared - have won the whole of the trade in these goods at-the ports he had visited.