4 
THE POISONED GRAIN BILL. 
2. From and after the passing of this Act, so much of the Act of the fourteenth year 
of her present Majesty, chapter thirteen, “ to regulate the sale of arsenic,” as permits the 
sale and use of arsenic for purposes of agriculture, shall be and the same is hereby re¬ 
pealed. 
3. Every person who shall knowingly and wilfully expose or offer for sale or sell any 
poison or poisonous ingredient or preparation, or any grain or seed which has been so 
steeped or dipped in poison, or with which poison has been so mixed, as thereby to 
render the same poisonous and calculated to destroy life, with intent that such poison or 
poisonous ingredient or preparation, or such grain or seed as aforesaid, should be used for 
the purpose of injuring or destroying any bird or animal whatever (except vermin, as 
hereinafter provided and allowed), shall, upon a summary conviction thereof, as herein¬ 
after provided, forfeit any sum not exceeding ten pounds . 
4. Every person who shall knowingly and wilfully sow, cast, set, lay, put, or place, or 
cause to be sown, cast, set, laid, put, or placed, in or upon any ground, whether open or 
enclosed, or in any highway, or in or upon any tree, or the hedges, fences, ditches, or 
banks of such ground or highway, or in or upon or by the side of any stack of corn, grain, 
pulse, tares, hay, straw, haulm, stubble, or of any cultivated vegetable produce then upon 
such ground, or any occupier who shall knowingly permit or suffer to remain exposed in 
any of such situations, any poison or poisonous ingredient or preparation, or any grain or 
seed which has been so steeped or dipped in poison, or with which poison has been so 
mixed, or any meat, carrion, or other thing upon or with which any poison or poisonous 
ingredient or preparation has been so put or impregnated, as thereby to render such grain, 
seed, meat, carrion, or other thing poisonous and calculated to destroy the life of or injure 
any bird or animal whatever (except vermin, as hereinafter provided), shall, upon a sum¬ 
mary conviction thereof as hereinafter provided, forfeit any sum not exceeding ten 
ing in this Act shall be deemed to make it unlawful for the occupier of any 
ground, whether open or enclosed, or of any dwelling-house or other building, to bait, 
place, or put, or cause to be baited, placed, or put, in or upon any such ground, dwelling- 
house, or building, any poison or poisonous ingredient or preparation with the sole in¬ 
tent of destroying rats, mice, or other vermin, provided that, in the case of any such 
ground, such poison or poisonous ingredient or preparation is baited or put in some gin 
or trap, and in such a manner as that no bird or other animal can gain access thereto in 
order to eat or consume any part thereof. 
6. Nothing in this Act shall prohibit, for use in agriculture, the exposing or offering 
for sale or selling, or the sowing or setting, of any grain or seed which has been steeped 
or dipped in, or with which has been mixed, a solution of sulphate of copper or blue 
* vitriol, in the proportion of one gallon of water at the least to one pound weight of sul¬ 
phate of copper or blue vitriol, and so in proportion for any greater or less quantity. 
7. This Act shall not extend to the sale of any poison when the same forms part of 
the ingredients of any medicine required to be made up or compounded according to the 
prescription of a physician, surgeon, or apothecary, registered under ‘’The Medical Act, 
1858,” or when such poison is required for use in art, or in the process of printing, dye¬ 
ing, bleaching, or otherwise of any manufactured goods, or to the sale of any poison or 
poisonous ingredient or preparation by wholesale to retail dealers, upon orders in writing 
in the ordinary course of wholesale dealing. 
8. This Act shall not affect any of the provisions of the several Acts of Parliament 
now in force respectively throughout the United Kingdom relating to game, or to cer¬ 
tificates or licenses to kill or deal in game, or to the destruction, preservation, or preven¬ 
tion of trespasses in pursuit of game. 
9. All penalties imposed by this Act may be recovered in England or Ireland before 
two Justices of the Peace, and in Scotland before two Justices of the Peace or the Sheriff; 
and for that purpose in England and Scotland the provisions of the Act of the eleventh 
and twelfth years of her present Majesty, chapter forty-three, and in Ireland, the Petty 
Sessions (Ireland) Act, 1851,” shall extend and apply to this Act, and to all proceedings 
in relation thereto; and it shall not in any such proceedings be necessary to allege or 
prove the bird or animal (as the case may be), or the ground where an offence is com¬ 
mitted, to be the property of or occupied by any person: Provided always, that the in¬ 
former or prosecutor (not being a constable or peace olficer) in any such proceeding shall 
be entitled at the discretion of the convicting Justices or Sheriff to one moiety of any 
pounds. 
5. 
