Cruelty to Animals

New Zealand Tablet, Issue 3, 6 August 1908, Page 22

Cruelty to Animals

- - 'He prayeth best who loyeth best, All things, both great and -small-. And a Bill now before Parliament • will, if passed .substantiallyin. its present form, incidentally further the love of ' all things great and small ' by introducing, into our legislation some .better provision .for.-the prevention of cruelty to animals. In the Bjll it is set. forth that the terms ' cruelty ' and ' ' ' Shall mean' any act causing unnecessary suffering to any animals, and the intentional infliction upon, any animals of any pain that in its kind or its' degree or its objects or its circumstances is undesirable or wanton or malicious; and includes, among other > things, flogging with, unnecessary violence or severity or overworking any animal, using any animal when it cannot be used without suffering, carrying any animal by land or water -in such a manner as to cause it, suffering which might be avoided, failing to supply any animal under t}ie care,of such , person charged with an offence against this Act with, a sufficient quantity of food or water, or killing any animal in an unnecessarily painful manner.' The Bill proposes to.. penalise (among other things) the following practices :—' Causing unnecessary suffering to animals, such as slaughtering domestic animals for food without previously stunning, pigeon-shooting from traps, coursing in enclosures of hares and rabbits, burning horses' mouths for lampas, docking horses' tails, overhead check-rein, and chained boundary dogs.''