A VILE DEED

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 185, 15 November 1910, Page 5

A VILE DEED

A HORSE MUTILATED AND KILLED. By Telegraph.—Press Association. Christchurch, Last Night. A peculiarly dastardly outrage was committee in Christchurch last evening. Early in the evening, H. Smith, caretaker of the Cricket Association's grounds in Hagley Park, tethered a mare he uses for. his work close to his house, and left her with some fodder, and a bucket ofwater. This morning, Smith and his assistant went out to get the mare in order to work hef, but to their surprise they could not find the animal. A search showed that she had been taken from the tether to the back of Jr" hedge near the house and had there been killed. There was a large wound extending across her throat and a wound over one thigh, the knife evidently having been driven deep into the flesh, for the bone was laid bare. The bucket was found close to the body, which the perpetrator of the outrage had evidently tried to get into v an old watercourse. The mare, which was valued at £SO, belonged to the Hagley Park ground com- . mittee. The police authorities, who have the matter in hand, do not think that a "horse fiend" is abroad again, and there is an impression that the deed could have been dictated only by spite.