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NATURE NOTES 
case was that one of the chief actors was a man who seems to 
have owed a grudge against both mistress and coachman for 
having ceased to put up at his hotel. I am wrong ; the worst 
feature of the case was the behaviour of those who hatched the 
whole plot against the venerable lady and who kept out of sight. 
It was shown at the trial that so unwilling were the police to 
have anything to do with it at Barmouth that they telegraphed 
to the Dolgelly police to do their work for them. Manifestly, 
if the Barmouth police found an aged horse, unfit for work, eight 
miles from home, their duty was to prevent it returning the eight 
miles to its home. This they did not do; they felt that such 
action would be ridiculous. 
But the jokers reckoned without their host. As soon as 
Miss Cobbe was informed of the conspiracy, she got the best 
counsel and the ablest veterinary to represent her at the trial. 
The veterinary surgeon, Mr. Stafford Jackson, M.R.C.V.S., 
has been in practice in Liverpool for twenty-two years. For 
fifteen years he has always been engaged by the R.S.P.C.A. to 
examine disputed cases of cruelty to animals, and to advise as 
to prosecutions in Liverpool, Lancashire, Cheshire and North 
Wales. He is also engaged by the War Office, and on his 
reports the Irish Remount Scandal has been exposed. It was 
on his evidence in Dublin that the defendant’s case collapsed. 
His report about “ Beverly ” is as follows : — 
“ An aged grey gelding, aged somewhere in the teens — not 20. I find him 
showing the usual signs of wear more or less on all four limbs. In his walk he 
goes perfectly sound. When trotting his gait is what is known to horsemen as 
‘ Sfoggy ’ — that is, he goes in a shuffling manner, a state of things almost universal 
in an old animal. It was difficult for me to decide that he was worse on one leg 
than on the other ; but I eventually thought that if there were a difference it was 
in the off fore leg. I examined both front legs, and both front feet, and I could 
find no indication of either heat or pain on pressure in either limb. In my 
opinion, any reasonable work that he might be put to would be quite consistent 
with humanity, considering the condition in which I found him. I have heard 
that the police say that the animal was not fit to work on June 16. Of course I 
cannot give a denial to this, but if such were the case, a slight stumble during his 
journey would be the cause, and I cannot conceive of it being anything but of a 
temporary character. In considering the history of the whole case, the charges 
on the summonses to Miss Cobbe and her coachman which have been shown to 
me are ridiculous and absurd.” 
The whole evidence given at the trial lies before me as I 
write. Miss Cobbe was determined that if publicity can shame 
men of the type who got up the cruel joke it should do so, and 
she employed a stenographer and has since seen that the whole 
evidence shall be laid before the world. The end of the sorry 
business was a foregone conclusion. The magistrates dismissed 
the case. But they cannot dismiss from the minds of the lovers 
of North Wales that this kind of persecution of a respected 
inhabitant of the Dolgelly Vale who had been before the world 
all her life as a friend of animals and a preventer of cruelty, and 
who, now in her eightieth year, might have been supposed to be 
entitled to consideration at the hands of a whole neighbourhood, 
