CRUELTY TO ANIMALS IN GENERAL. 525 



would have that effect. Society, for mstance, could not long- 

 tolerate a system of laws which might drag to the criminal 

 bar every lady who might impale a butterfly or every man 

 who might drown a litter of kittens, to answer there and show 

 that the act was needful. Such laws must be rationally con- 

 sidered with reference to their objects, not as the means of 

 preventing aggressions upon property, otherwise unlawful; 

 nor so as to involve absurd consequences, which the legisla- 

 ture cannot be supposed to have intended. So construed, this 

 class of laws may be found useful in elevating humanity, by 

 enlargement of its sympathy with all God's creatures and thus 

 society may be improved. Although results in other States 

 and in England have not, as we judge from the paucity of 

 decisions, been such as to excite sanguine hopes, yet to a 

 limited extent the objects of the laws may be practically ob- 

 tained. It is the duty of the courts to co-operate to that end, 

 so far as the rules of construction may warrant. . . From 

 the view we have taken of the nature and scope of this class 

 of acts, it is obvious that the term 'needless' cannot be reason- 

 ably construed as characterizing an act which might by 

 care be avoided. It simply means an act done without any 

 useful motive, in a spirit of wanton cruelty, or for the mere 

 pleasure of destruction. ... All acts of killing are not 'need- 

 less' in the meaning of the statute, which are unlawful. A 

 man, for instance, might kill his neighbor's sheep for food, 

 which would be unlawful and either a trespass or felony, 

 according to the circumstances; but such killing could not, 

 with any show of reason, come within the intention of the 

 act in question. The lawfulness or unlawfulness of the act 

 has really no bearing upon its character, as charged." ^ 



The question as to the nature of the acts constituting- 

 cruelty is discussed in §§ 122, 123, infra. It was said in a 

 New York case that wanton cruelty to an animal was a mis- 

 demeanor at the common law;^ and in a Federal case it was 



' Grise v. State, 37 Ark. 456, 458. 



' Stage Horse Cases, 15 Abb. Pr. N. S. (N. Y.), 5i- 



