653 
CRUELTY TO A HORSE BY OYER-WORK. 
The Globe of August 21st, alluding to a case of cruelty to 
a horse by being worked by a flyman, although affected with 
severe lameness arising from long existing and incurable 
disease, says: 
“ The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is 
placed in an awkward predicament if a recent decision of the 
magistrate at Hammersmith Police Court, as reported in the 
newspapers, is to be taken as sound law. A flyman, of 
Wimbledon, was charged by the society’s officers with driv¬ 
ing in a waggonette a horse that was incurably lame and in 
pain. According to three veterinary surgeons, who were 
called as witnesses, the poor creature was not fit to live, and 
they declared it would be a mercy to have it killed. With 
his customary caution the magistrate left the court to satisfy 
himself as to the merits of the charge by personal inspection. 
On his return he remarked that the horse had a f cheerful 
countenance,’ which to his—the worthy magistrate’s—mind 
indicated that it was not in pain. Indeed, his worship was 
so impressed by the quadruped’s happy mien that he ques¬ 
tioned one of the veterinary witnesses as to whether, if he 
were in the horse’s place, he would like to be killed. The 
skilled witness, however, who probably had not considered 
the case from this point of view, declined to give an opinion. 
Then the magistrate proceeded to pronounce judgment. 
He said, ‘ It would be cruelty if a horse were worked at a 
time when it was known that it was unfit to be worked; but 
it would not be cruelty if worked in an unsound state, sup¬ 
posing that everything had been done for it, and that it was 
clear it must be killed if not worked. Otherwise it would 
be cruelty to work unsound horses which went about cheer¬ 
ful and happy.’ From which it would appear that a man 
who owns a horse fit only for killing may continue to work 
it so long as he can show that he has done all that he can 
to alleviate its pains. Again, as regards the ‘ cheerful 
countenance,’ a horse has only, in vulgar parlance, to grin 
and bear his infirmities—to put a contented face on things 
as he finds them—and it may defy the society and all its 
officers. Then, again, when may a horse be said to wear a 
cheerful countenance ? And should it form a branch of the 
veterinary surgeon’s education to study equine physiognomy 
in order to qualify himself to judge by an index to which 
the magistrate in question attached such importance? Any¬ 
how, since his worship in the case in question thought fit to 
dismiss the summons and condemn the prosecution to the 
payment of a guinea costs, the sodiety’s officers will, no 
