A DESPICABLE ACT.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 3876, 27 November 1928, Page 2

A DESPICABLE ACT.

WHOLESALE POISONING OF DOGS. DESIRE TO BRING OFFENDER TO BOOK. Buy a pup and your money will buy, Love unflinching that cannot lie; Perfect passion and worship fed, By a kick in the ribs or a pat on the head. —Kipling.

Kipling could not have described the dog more aptly. There are very few people who have not, at some time or another, experienced the devotion and affection of a member of the canine tribe, yet Foxton is the unfortunate possessor of some perverted individual who, possibly through some kink, has taken a set against the dogs of the_.community and as a result of his fiendish operations has been responsible for the death of some 38 animals during the last month or so. Dogs of all descriptions have met their doom at his hand and, although in a great many cases the animals have been of the “pet” variety, still cattle, sheep and other valuable dogs have succumbed to his diabolical designs, and in no case has the dog destroyed been of the sheep worrying type. It appears as though strychnine poison has been the chief agent used and needless to say the death selected for these faithful animals is particularly painful and in some cases, very slow. It appears as if the poison is fed to the animals, as in one case a dog was found in a dying state in its kennel one morning and had not been off the chain for the previous twenty-four hours. The following night a tin of preserved eggs disappeared from the storeroom at the rear of this particular house.

'Section 16 of the Police Offences Act fixes the penalty for laying poison as follows: — “Every person is liable to a fine not exceeding ten pounds who (a) throws, casts, drops or lays or causes or procures to be thrown, cast, dropped, or laid, any poison jacent thereto, in any borough or town district, or on or within three chains of any highway outside of any borough or town district; or (2) on any land or premises anywhere not in his own actual occupation; (b) buries any poison in any land at less than two feet from the surface thereof.”

The police have been carrying out" very full investigations into the matter but with so much rabbit destruction being carried out by means of strychnine poisoning it is very difficult to locate the source from which the perpetrator of the dastardly acts obtains his poison. In order to assist the police in bringing the offender to book we have been asked by several people who have lost dogs, to endeavour to arrange for a reward to be offered to anyone furnishing the necessary information to have the person or persons convicted of the offence. With this object in view we would be willing to open a subscription list, and any person desiring to subscribe thei’eto could forward, the name to this office and state the amount they are prepared to give.