CRUELTY TO HORSE

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 704, 2 July 1929, Page 16

CRUELTY TO HORSE

TWO RIBS BROKEN BY DRUNKEN OWNER MONTH’S IMPRISONMENT “This is a very bad case,” said Mr. F. H. Levien, S.M., in the Onehunga Police Court yesterday afternoon, when an elderly man, James Rear, was charged with being drunk and ill-treating a horse. Constable Frank Johnsen told the court that when he arrived in Church Street, Onehunga, shortly after 7 p.m. on June 21, he found the horse lying down on the roadside where it had fallen while being driven in a cart by Rear. Accused was pounding the horse with both knees, as he said the animal was blown through having eaten too much grass. On the advice of a bystander Rear had previously slit one of the horse’s ears with a penknife in order to let the wind out of its body. It was evident to witness that the animal was unable to rise owing to exhaustion caused by starvation, and as it was apparently dying he obtained authority from a justice of the peace to have it shot. Norman R. Austin, who took the animal to his boiling-down works after having shot it, said that he found two of its ribs had been broken, and it was badly bruised. The animal was exhausted from lack of nourishment. A Maori, witness for the defence, said the horse was all right, and that he would not have shot it. In his opinion the animal had not been given a fair chance. He had never seen a horse blown by eating too much clover or grass, nor had he heard that slitting an ear was a cure for the trouble. Mr. Levien characterised it as a very bad case. A fine would not be sufficient punishment to a man who would starve a horse and subsequently ill-treat it by cutting its ear and breaking two of its ribs. Such a man must have a vicious trait in his nature, he said. He would be convicted and discharged for drunkenness and sentenced to one month’s imprisonment for cruelty.