"ONLY SKIN DEEP."

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 853, 27 June 1910, Page 6

"ONLY SKIN DEEP."

« A POLICE COURT INCIDENT. ! Complaint is sometimes made by the Committee, of the Wellington Society for tho Prevention of Cruelty to Animals of tho somewhat perfunctory manner in whioh tho police constables (they state) co-operate with the society in. laying by the heels persons wlio illtreat animals under thoir care. A case, in the Magistrate's Court on Saturday morning, however, shows that tho police are on the alert for such cases. As reported elsewhere, a man, the driver . of a milk-cart, was fined £3, with the option of 21 days' imprisonment for working a horso with a sore back. After the ease had been heard, a memberof Tub Dominion reporting staff went out into the police yard and had a look at the horse, which had been brought to the Court for his Worship's inspection—a dumb witness. The condition of its back offered eloquent testimony of the suffej-ing it had endured. A raw-looking wound, about 5 inches Jong, was observed near tho animal's wither, some inches from the spine, just whero tho saddle-pad rested. The saddle was blood-stained. A police constable had seen the horse in tho street and brought it to the yard. "It's only skin deep," said the man in charge of tho horse, to the reporter. The latter said nothing. He was thinking how very comforting it would be to sit on the driver's scat of tho milk-cart with a largo pliant horsewhip, and tho man who said "it was only skin deep," securely harnessed between the shafts.