Notes and Notions.

New Zealand Graphic, 1 July 1899, Page 14

Notes and Notions.

The story of destitution and death as recorded in the Wellington papers of Friday last reflects little credit oil the benevolent institution of the Empire city. The victim was one Andrew C'arnaga. who hail been laid up with consumption for. nine months, anil who died on Tuesday last from pulmonary hemorrhage. ' The ladyvisitor of the Benevolent Institute hail visited the house several times, ami had allowed the unfortunate family the munificent sum of 4/ per week and four rations. There was the wife, the invalid husband, who required constant attendance and continual nourishment, and there were five children, and the rent of the home was 7 per week. To provide for rent, children, invalid cookery, not to mention the necessaries of life, the Benevolent Institution (oh. the bittei irony of the name to the dying man and bis starving family) provided 4/ a week. Surely there is something very very wrong here. Something which the charitably disposed persons who supply the Benevolent Institute with funds should inquire into. To me it is but one of many instances of the fact that lienevolent societies, though well meaning, do more harm than good in the majority of instances and places. It is a case of doing those things they ought not to do. and leaving undone those things they ought to do. They are in hundreds of cases grossly deceived and defrauded, and every now and then in one of other of our principal cities a case arises like the present, which shows an almost inconceivable lack of perception of a genuine case of privation, and a lack of sympathy for obvious suffering simply astounding.

Speaking generally, the decisions and sentences of the Magistrates' Courts in New Zealand are fair and reasonable. and we are free in this colony from those flagrant absurdities and abuses which disgrace the English Provincial Magisterial Bench, and which are so usefully shown up in the legal pillory of Mr Labouchere's fearless journal "Truth." But there are one or two points on which I think the magistrates of this colony show a disposition to be unduly lax. or rather, it would be more correct to say lenient. 1 refer to cases of cruelty to animals. The real gravity of the crime does not seem to be understood by many otherwise excellent J.P.'s and Resident Magistrates, and there is a tendency either to discharge cases without sufficiently searching enquiry, or where a conviction is recorded to award a sentence which is not at all commensur-

ate with the seriousness, and too frequently the blackguardism of the offence. Two eases are now before me which are an admirable text for the usual lay sermon which (1 fear) 1 all too ofen inflict on readers of this column. The value of these instances is that each represents an entirely different stamp of case. both, however, needing severity to lie put down. ♦ ♦ ♦ We will take the worst first, and I think all will agree that as an instance of juvenile scoundrelism and brutality it would be (happily) hard to beat. And. lest it should be thought that in my earnestness over this matter I might exaggerate, let us take the plain report of the local paper. It records that at Patea Court last week two bogs named Hodge were brought up on a charge of cruelty to an animal. The facts according to the Press were that one of the boys held a horse while the other tied a tin can with some stones in it to its tail, and then let it go. The horse began to gallop, and the tin to rattle, and the horse galloped along the road about three chains to where the road stopped, and the horse tried to jump over a wire fence, and was caught and thrown over, being seriously injured by the fall. The boys beat it with sticks to make it get up. but this it was unable to do (having broken its back), and after taking the tin away the boys left it to its fate. It remained there for two days, when it was found necessary to destroy it. The Court was quite satisfied defendants were guilty of the charge. Unfortunately the Act did not allow them to order a good birching or that would have been the sentence; and if they fined heavily, the hardship would fall on their mother. Under the circumstances they had decided in inflict a fine of 10/ on each defendant, with costs 13/.

Comment so far as concerns this terrible story of blackguard cruelty itself is obviously needless. It is enough to shock and distress the most callous, while to those who love animals it is simply past thinking upon. But there are one or two points in the evidence and in the decision of the magistrate which seem to lie worth consideration. Surely, in the first place, it is monstrous to a degree that the severest form of flogging cannot be prescribe!l for such dastardly and cowardly actions. If the magistrates concerned are right, the sooner the law is amended the better, and I commend the matter to the attention of our legislators in Parliament assembled. If they get this one Act altered, the session—be it long or short—will not have been wholly useless. But even supposing there was no power to flog these culprits, surely some more fitting punishment could have been found than a nominal fine. What! someone will doubtless say. would you wn<i them to prison? Yes; most certainly. 1 would answer, in the absence of reformatories (whose absence is a national disgrace) they should assuredly go to prison. Who will maintaiu that the erime of these cruel cowards is not infinitely more serious from every standpoint—moral and social — than the picking of a pocket or stealing of a horse; yet we have recently seen some severe imprisonment sentences for these latter offences.

It does not seem to strike many people that brutality to animals, and callousness to their suffering, is. if encouraged, likely to end in cases of social ferocity and brutality. To beat and kick a horse to death is a long step on the road to crimes of vio-

lence. of cruelty to women and children, and even to murder; and the imposing of absurdly lenient sentences palliates, if it does not encourage, hideous crimes such as that chronicled in the Patea Court, if it were understood that a sentence of two or three months' hard labour with a couple of judiciously placed and very severe floggings would be awarded to any even moderately bad case of active cruelty to animals, the evil would be very soon stamped out. * * ♦

In the foregoing paragraph I used the phrase active cruelty to animals, and I did so advisedly, because the other case I wish to refer to concerns a case of what may be termed passive cruelty, and while entirely lacking the horror and criminal characteristics of the last, yet is no bad instance of the tendency to a careless callousness to the needs and necessities of animals, and lack of the thought which is far too characteristic of many country districts. The facts shortly stated are that Mr Bromell, on the 28th February, sold a section to Mr Rollet, and on that mustered the sheep thereon, also purchased by Mr Rollet. The section was an outlying one, each of tha gentlemen named living about fifteen miles therefrom. Ten of the sheep mustered were declared to be 1 the property of Mr Charles Ricketts, a neighbouring farmer, and these were placed in a pen by Mr Bromell and kept separate from the flock. Word was sent by a Mr John Harford to Mr Ricketts that his sheep were on the property, and asking him to remove same. The evidence was contradictory as to whether Mr Ricketts was told that the sheep were in a pen. or, as he stated, that they were in a paddock. Anyway, being busy hop-picking, etc_ he did not send for the sheep, which remained in the pen, and the other parties having dispersed no one apparently was aware of their condition. Then pen was but one-eight of an acre in extent, and there was no water. Sometime afterwards, a Mr Carl Davis, in passing over the land, noticed that the sheep had not sufficient food, and without knowing any of the circumstances he removed them into an adjoining pen. where there was herbage. No one seems to have gone near the place again till the 19th of April, when Mr Rollet went up to muster his sheep, and was surprised to find the sheep in the pen. three of them dead, and the remainder very much starved. The Magistrate dismissed the case. It appeared clearly enough to him that there was not any intentional cruelty upon the part of anyone, and it was, he considered. a moot point who was responsible for the neglect, which was evidently caused by a misunderstanding. or an omission to give full particulars. Now. while quite agreeing with the Magistrate that there was in this special case no intentional cruelty on the part of anyone, and that the question as to who ought to have seen after the sheep was not over clear, I do think that this was a case of reprehensible carelessness all round. No doubt all the persons concerned are utterly capable of a callous. far less a cruel action, but that through want of thought or forgetfulness on part of one or more they did severally and jointly cause great cruelty and outrageous suffering to several animals is unquestionable. Want of thought causes half the suffering and half the crimes in the world, and when it reaches a certain

point it becomes itself a crime. This matter is somewhat of a hobby horse of mine, and on this occasion has run farther with me than I intended I crave pardon “Mes Amis,” but also your assistance in agitating for increased care of animals, and for the heavy handling of the birch in cases of active brutality.