564 
any difficulty under this Bill, if it should 
pass Into a. law. 
The eruelties which I have already ad- 
verted to, are either committed by own- 
ers, or by. servants, charged with the care 
and government of horses and other cat- 
tle. If the owner unmercifully directs 
them to be driven to most unreasonable 
distances, or with burthens manifestly 
beyond their powers; if he buys them 
up when past the age of strength, not 
for a-use cor respondent to their condition, 
but upon the barbarous and wicked com- 
putation of liow long they can be tortured 
to profit; in neither of ‘these cases can 
the cruelty be imputed to the servant 
whom you meet upon the road, struggling 
to perform the unjust commands of hisem- 
ployer. The master is the obvious culprit 
—respondeat superjor—the spectators 
and the servant are the witnesses—and 
- these are the cases where an indictment 
would operate asa most useful example, 
without oppression to those who thus of- 
fend systematically against every prin- 
ciple of humanity and justice. 
On the other hand, when no cruel 
commands are given to the servant, but 
his own malice offends at once against 
his master aud the unhappy animal 
which he wickedly abuses, he of course 
is alone responsible; and these are the 
cases in which a summary jurisdiction 
‘would be most generally resorted to, as 
more favourable at once to the disinter- 
ested informer and to the offender, who 
would be thus punished with a small pe- 
nalty, and be delivered from an expen-. 
sive prosecution. 
The other House of Parliament will no 
doubt bagposseliah this in the further pro- 
gress of the Bill. 
But in neither of these cases, which 
comprehend, indeed, every abuse which 
the Bill extends to, is there any kind of 
danger that it will work oppression, or 
produce uncertainty in decision. 
-A man cannot, if an owner, be the 
subject of an ge Dt because he 
~ may have been !css considerate and mer- 
_ciful thap he ought to be; nor, if a ser- 
vant, for an unreasonable blow of tem- 
per upon an unmanageable charge. No, 
my Lords! Every indictment or informa- 
tion before a magistrate must charge the 
offence to be committed maliciously, and 
with wanton cruelty, and the proof must 
correspond with the charge. This Bill 
makes no act whatever a misdemeanor 
that does not plainly indicate to the 
court or magistrate a malicious and wick- 
ed intent’; but this generality is so far 
Lord Erskine’s Speech on Cruelty to Animals, 
Jaly 1, 
from generating uncertainty, that I ap- 
peal to every member in our great pro- 
fession, whether, on the contrary, it is 
not in favour of the accused, and anala- 
gous to our most merciful principles of 
criminal justice? So far from involving 
the magistrate in doubtful discrimina- 
tions, Ke must be himself shocked and 
disgusted before he begins to exercise his 
authority over another. He must find 
malicious cruelty ; and what that is can 
never be a matter of uncertainty or 
doubt, because nature bas erected a 
standard in the hunian heart, by which 
it may be surely ascertained. 
This consideration surely ‘removes 
every dithculty from the last clause, 
which. protects from wilfal, malicious, 
and wanton cruelty, all reclaimed ante 
mals, Whatever may be the creatures 
which, by your own voluntary act, you 
chuse to take from the wilds’ which na- 
ture has allotted to them, you must be 
supposed to exercise this admitted do- 
minion for use, or for pleasure, or from 
curiosity. If for use, enjoy that use in 
its plenitude; if the animal be fit for 
food, enjoy it pe ae for food; if for 
pleasure, enjoy that pleasure, by taxing | 
all its faculties for your comfort ; if for 
curiosity, indulge it -to the full. The 
more we mix ourselves with all created 
matter, animate or inanimate, the more 
we shall be lifted up to the contempla- 
tion of God. But never let it be said, 
that the law should indulge us in the most 
atrocious of all propensities, which, when 
habitually indulged in, on beings be. 
neath us, destroy every security of hu- 
man life, by hardening the heart for the 
perpetration of all crimes. — 
The times in which we live, my Lords, 
have read us an awful lesson upon the 
importance of preserving the moral sym- 
pathies. We have seen that the highest 
state of refinement and civilization will 
not secure them. I solemnly protest 
against any allusion to the causes of the 
revolutions which are yet shaking the 
world, or to the crimes or mistakes of 
any individuals in any nation; but it 
connects itself with my subject to re- 
mark, that even in strugyles for human 
rights and privileges, sincere and landa- 
ble as they occasionally may have been, 
all human rights and privileges have been 
trampled upon, by barbarities far more 
shocking than those of the most barba- 
rous nations, because they have not 
merely extinguished-natural unconnected 
life, but have destroyed (I trust only for 
@ season) the social happiness and inde- 
pendence 
