38 



suffering, unless under the direst necessity, must indeed be cruel at heart and insen- 

 sible to every dictate of humanity. . . . The legality of a painful operation must 

 be governed by the necessity for it, and even where a desirable and legitimate 

 cbiect is sought to be attained the nature of the operation and the pain caused 

 thereby must not so far outbalance the importance of the end as to make it clear 

 to any reasonable person that it is preferable that the object should be abandoned 

 rather than that the suffering should be inflicted. Dehorning was an operation so 

 torturing that one shuddered to think that men could be found to perform it. 

 He failed to see the necessity or reason for the operation. If an owner to enhance 

 the value of his cattle by 20s. or 40.s. mutilated them at an expense to the 

 animals of excruciating torture how could this be said to be necessary or 

 reasonable ? Evidence that such an operation was unnecessary was also to be 

 found in the fact that throughout vast districts both in England and Scotland 

 thousands upon thousands of horned cattle were to be seen, many herding 

 together peacefully enough, grazing in the .same fields, confined in the same yards, 

 feeding, thriving and fattening together. While occasionally one of such animals 

 might give a little more trouble than the rest, was not this abundant proof that 

 dehorning was not necessary for the benefit of the animal, or to render it fit for 

 all legitimate purposes of its owner, and that tipping or knobbing had been found 

 to be and were practically sufficient. He strongly dissented from the principle 

 laid down in the case of Lewis v. Fermor. He dissented from any notion that a 

 mistaken belief, however honest, that the law justified a painful operation when 

 in truth it did no such thing, would operate as an excuse at all, except perhaps 

 in mitigation of punishment. It followed then from what he had said, and the 

 reasons he had given, that in his opinion the practice of dehorning was a 

 cruel, unreasonable and unnecessary abuse of the animals operated on, and 

 therefore was illegal and ought to be suppressed, and that the magistrates ought 

 to have convicted the respondent. 



The Scotch Case Appealed. 



The Scotch case of Renton v. Wilson was carried to the Scottish Court of 

 Appeal under the name of Todrick v. Wilson, on March 3, 1891, and in the inter- 

 val the decision of the English Court had been given. On the bench were the 

 Lord Justice-Clerk, Lords McLaren, Trayner, Wellwood and Kyllachy. The facts 

 as given in the previous case were recited : 



Graham, Murray, Wallace and Chisholm for the appellant claimed that great 

 pain was caused even though the operation was carefully performed, that the 

 same results could largely be attained by other means, and that the pain inflicted 

 was out of all proportion to the benefits said to be derived from it. These two 

 points being clearly established, the respondent should have been convicted. 

 This was the view taken of the Act in England in the case of Ford v. Wiley. 



Comrie Thomson and Oi*r for the respondent, held that the judgment of the 

 sheriff-substitute was right and should be affirmed. The facts set forth clearly 

 distinguished this case from the English case. That was practically a special 

 case. The facts there shewed that the operation was clumsily and cruelly per- 

 formed and that it was almost entirely unknown in England. 



The finding of the court was a unanimous confirmation of the two previous 

 decisions. The views of the various judges may be given briefly as follows: 



Lord McLaren in delivering judgment stated that in a previous complaint 

 against the same respondent, Renton v. Wilson, it was determined that the dehorn- 



