VETERINARY JURISPRUDENCE. 
721 
had been done by one of the witnesses. Mr. Addison said that 
person bad gone to gentlemen one after another, not to tell them 
that he was about to take out informations against them — but he put 
a number of questions to them, that he might come here and give 
evidence against them. After pumping the defendants, then he came 
in at the end, like a policeman or a lawyer’s clerk, and said, “ Call 
me ; I will prove everything.” Whatever the object of this prosecu- 
tion might be, whether to get subscriptions in this neighbourhood 
or otherwise, he (Mr. Addison) trusted that nobody would ever give 
a penny to a society who sent out informers to get up such cases as 
this. Were they to introduce a kind of Ten Hours Act to regulate 
the number of hours that horses were to be worked? Was every 
gentleman who took out his horses to have a spy set upon him ? 
Did they not admit that they overdrove their horses when they went 
to Blackpool and back in one day ? Races, steeplechases, and so on, 
were ten times worse ; but in every one of such cases we should have 
these meddlesome persons bringing them up before the magistrates. 
It was pot for that Bench, or any other Bench to decide whether 
nine or ten hours was enough fora horse to work. This was a con- 
test between the makers of mowing machines to test which was the 
better of the two ; and proceedings were taken against them as if 
that was an improper thing — as if such rivalry was a proper thing 
to be put down. It was a question whether such rivalry had not 
done more to advance the science of agriculture than anything else. 
It had brought to perfection these very machines. It was a thing 
which, if properly conducted, the Bench would look upon with 
favour, and not disfavour — the honorable rivalry existing between 
the two firms of Picksley, Sims, and Co., and Mr. Bamlett. This 
case had arisen out of the fact that two horses died. The contest 
took place on the 7th July, and all the evidence of what was seen 
and done was known on the 8tb, or that night. If there was cruelty 
or ill-treatment, then it was patent to all who saw it ; and yet it was 
not until after the horses had died or been shot — it was not until the 
25th, when some silly rumours arose, and people said, “ Oh, they 
have killed these horses,” that this case was got up as a sensational 
thing. He had not seen his friend (Mr. Harris) before, but he 
opened the case with a kind of eloquence which one was accustomed 
to hear more on a Sunday than on a week-day. (Laughter.) What 
was it that shocked society in this case ? Why, the allegation that 
these horses were actually driven to death — a monstrous piece of 
nonsense, as it turned out now. Mr. Heaps, a brother of the other 
veterinary surgeon, who not only attended the horses all through, 
but was present at the contest, would tell them all about it. He 
perfectly agreed with his brother that the horses died from having 
been improperly fed, which produced laminitis. If they had died 
from fatigue there would have been congestion of the lungs to a 
greater degree. Then they had had paraded before them — no doubt 
a skilful man — sent down by the society. He and Mr. Nuttall told 
them they got up the corpses of these horses four days after they had 
been buried. It was a piece of nonsense to say that they could tell 
