WHAT ACTS AKIC I'UOHIBITED. 531 



Hut a l3eating for the purpose of training or discipline, 

 though unnecessarily severe, has been held not to constitute 

 an offense under the statute.^=* And where a cabman, 

 intending to beat his horse for refusing to draw a load, struck 

 it a single blow upon the neck which killed it, he was held 

 to be rightfully acquitted if the evidence showed no deliber- 

 ation to kill the animal but only to chastise it.-^'' 



Some knowledge of the nature of the act is, however, es- 

 sential. Thus, driving a horse while ignorant that it is sick 

 or sore is not per sc tormenting or torturing it.^^ And in an 

 indictment against a minor for cruelly over-driving a horse, 

 an instruction that he was presumed to intend the natural 

 consequence of his acts, but that, if in the exercise of his judg- 

 ment he thought he was not over-driving, he must be ac- 

 quitted, was held correct.^® Where the receiver of a large 

 consignment of cattle, which he was supposed to receive and 

 attend to personally, had not removed the head-ropes froin 

 cattle arriving in the port on Saturday until the following 

 Monday, and was convicted of cruelty, it was held that as 

 there AAas no evidence of guilty knowledge or of his wilfully 

 abstaining from knowledge, the conviction must be 

 quashed. ^'^ And where certain horses in a colliery were 

 worked while sufifering from raw wounds, it was held that 

 the certificated manager could not be convicted when he and 



Magoon (Mass.), 51 N. E. Rep. 1082, where it was held that the defend- 

 ant's guilt does not depend on whether he thought he was unnecessarily 

 cruel, but whether he was so in fact and did unnecessarily cruel acts. See, 

 also, Duncan v. Pope, 80 L. T. N. S. 120. 



'" State V. Avery, 44 X. H. ,192. 



" Peo. V. Ross. 3 N. Y. City Hall Rec. 191, cited in Stage Horse Cases, 

 IS Abb. Pr. N. S. (N. Y.) 51. 63. Cf. State v. Hackfath. supra. 



Where a policeman struck a runaway horse with a stone, the question 

 of cruelty, it was held, should be left to the jury: State v. Isley (N. C), 

 26 S. E. Rep. 35- 



"■ Stage Horse Cases, 15 Abb. Pr. N. S. (N. Y.) 51- 



'"Com. V. Wood, III Mass. 408. And see State v. Roche, 37 Mo. App. 

 .480. 



" Elliott V. Osborn, 65 L. T. N. S. 378. 



