572 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



watchful guardian of the rights of animals, and 

 without whose agency the laws we have enu- 

 merated would, as regards England, stand a poor 

 chance of being enforced. The business of this 

 society is conducted mainly by the employment 

 of persons all over the country to find out cases 

 of cruelty, and to bring the offenders to justice. 

 The society diffuses handbills and placards in 

 places where they may come prominently under 

 the notice of persons likely to infringe the law. 

 It further has issued various publications cal- 

 culated to stir up the feelings in behalf of ani- 

 mals. 



The handbills and placards deserve special 

 notice. Sheep salesmen are reminded that con- 

 victions have been obtained against persons for 

 ill-treating sheep by cutting and lacerating their 

 ears, as a means of identifying them from sheep 

 belonging to other consigners. Shepherds are 

 warned, by a cited example, to abstain from a 

 specified mode of treating sheep for certain mala- 

 dies; because pain is inflicted, which a veteri- 

 nary surgeon knows how to avoid, but which an 

 ignorant though well-meaning shepherd may not. 

 Farmers are reminded that it is a punishable 

 offense to crowd too many sheep together on 

 going to market ; instances being cited in which 

 eleven sheep were crammed into a small cart, 

 with their legs tied tightly together. Captains 

 of freight-steamers are informed that penalties 

 have been enforced against a captain for so over- 

 crowding his vessel, on a voyage from Holland 

 to the Thames, as to cause the sheep much pain 

 and suffering; carriers and cattle-barge owners 

 are under the same legal obligations. 



In regard to cows, one placard cautions per- 

 sons sending them to market with the udder 

 greatly distended with milk, and from which the 

 poor animals evidently suffer much pain. Cattle- 

 rearers are told that penalties have been en- 

 forced against one of their body for sawing off 

 the horns of fourteen heifers so close to the head 

 as to cause blood to flow in considerable quan- 

 tity, and to make the animals stamp and moan ; 

 the object of such a mode of cutting being to in- 

 crease the market value of the horns. Butchers 

 are reminded that it is a punishable offense to 

 bleed calves to death merely for the sake of giv- 

 ing additional whiteness to veal. Consigners and 

 carriers are alike reminded that the act of 1849 

 imposes fines or imprisonment as a punishment 

 for conveying animals in such way as to subject 

 them to unnecessary pain or suffering ; the neg- 

 lect to give proper food and water to the ani- 

 mals, whether coming to market, at market, or 



in removal from market, is announced in an- 

 other handbill to be an infringement of the same 

 statute. 



Drovers, by another handbill or placard, are 

 cautioned against urging on cattle which by lame- 

 ness are unfitted to travel along the. roads and 

 streets ; and against striking animals on the legs 

 so violently as to lame them : both are practices 

 to which drovers are too prone, and both are 

 punishable. Farmers, graziers, and salesmen are 

 alike warned that the season of the year should 

 be taken into account in the transport of shorn 

 sheep. " It is hardly conceivable that respecta- 

 ble farmers and graziers, merely for the sake of 

 profit, can in the months of December, January, 

 February, March, or April, cruelly strip a dumb 

 animal of that warm woolen coat which the 

 goodness of God has provided more abundantly 

 in winter to protect it from the cold weather; or 

 that any English salesman will lay himself open 

 to a criminal charge of aiding or continuing the 

 offense by exposing shorn animals for sale at 

 such inclement seasons." 



Horses and donkeys find a place in the safe- 

 guards which the society endeavors to provide, 

 by disseminating placards and handbills pointing 

 out the penalties for cruelty or neglect. It is an 

 offense against the laws to work a horse in an 

 omnibus, cab, or other vehicle, when in an infirm 

 or worn-out state. It is an offense to beat a horse 

 in a stable with a degree of severity amounting to 

 cruelty, merely to make it obedient, or, still worse, 

 through an impulse of angry passion. It is an 

 offense to set a horse to drag a cart or wagon 

 loaded with a weight beyond his strength; many 

 coal-merchants and their carmen have been pros- 

 ecuted and fined for this unfeeling conduct. It 

 is an offense to cruelly beat and override poor 

 donkeys ; useful animals which seem fated to be 

 the victims of very hard treatment in the world. 

 It is a significant fact that one placard is ad- 

 dressed to "excursionists and others:" those 

 who have witnessed the treatment of donkeys by 

 their drivers, at Hampstead Heath, Blackheath, 

 and the humbler grades of sea-side places where 

 holiday people assemble, will know what this 

 means. The society aid the inspectors of mines, 

 or are aided by them, in bringing to justice truck- 

 drivers and others for working horses and ponies 

 in an unfit state in coal-pits. 



It was not likely that dogs would be left out 

 of sight by the society ; the maltreating of such 

 animals is the subject of some of the cautionary 

 placards, especially in localities where rough per- 

 sons, prone to dog-tormenting, are known to be 



