524 CRUELTY AND MALICIOUS MISCHIEF. 



tion is free from difficulty. By the statutes of all civilized 

 countries cruelty to animals is, within certain restrictions, 

 made a punishable ofifense and the only dispute that can arise 

 is as to the definition of those restrictions. 



Closely allied to the prohibitions against Cruelty are those 

 against Malicious Mischief to animals. In the latter case 

 the animal is considered as property that is being injured 

 or destroyed, but, as actual malice against the owner need not 

 necessarily be shown, the two offenses are so nearly related 

 that, though some of their features should be discussed sep- 

 arately, much of the reasoning applicable under the one head 

 applies to the other as well. 



With regard to the laws against cruelty, it has been well 

 said in an Arkansas case : "They are not made for the pro- 

 tection of the absolute or relative rights of persons or the 

 rights of men to the acquisition and enjoyment of property, 

 or the peace of society. They seem to recognize and attempt 

 to protect some abstract rights in all that animate creation, 

 made subject to man by the Creator, from the largest and 

 noblest to the smallest and most insignificant. The rights 

 of persons and the security of property and the public peace 

 are all protected by other laws, with appropriate sanctions. 

 The objects of the two classes should not be confounded. 

 It will lead to hopeless confusion. The peculiar legislation 

 we are now called to discuss must be considered wholly ir- 

 respective of property, or of the public peace, or of the incon- 

 veniences of nuisances. The misdemeanors attempted to be 

 defined may be as well perpetrated upon a man's own prop- 

 erty as another's, or upon creatures the property of no one; 

 and, so far as one act is concerned, it is all the same whether 

 the acts be done amongst refined men and women whose sen- 

 sibilities would be shocked, or in the solitude of closed rooms 

 or secluded forests. It is in this view that such acts are to 

 be construed, to give them, if possible, some beneficent effect, 

 without running into such absurdities as would, in the end, 

 make them mere dead letters. A literal construction of them 



