Animal Cruelty

George Lawson and Robert Holloway, carmen in the employ of Mr. Charles Starkey, dust-contractor of Agar-town, St Pancras, appeared to answer a summons at the instance of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals which charged them with cruelly beating the horses intrusted to their care. From the evidence of William Love and George Seaman, two officers of the society, it appeared that the on 25^th inst. they were on duty in the Aland-road, Kentish-town, when they saw the defendants driving a cart heavily laden with dust. On reaching a part of the road which is much broken up, the wheels of the cart sank nearly a foot in the ground, and one of the defendants, on the off side, with a short handled whip, flogged the horse most cruelly under the flanks and over the head, and when they flinched from the torture the other defendant, on the near side, beat them with a thick stick, the horses all the while struggling their utmost to drag the load, which they were unable to do, and which appeared still more to infuriate the defendants, who both beat them violently over the head and eyes. On examining the horses, which were old and worn out, the officers found them scored with weals under the flank, and other other parts of their bodies, and one of them had several places where the hair and skin had come off, apparently from recent blows, and which places were raw and bleeding. The magistrate said there was no doubt of the defendants guilty of the most cruel and wanton barbarity, and sentenced them to pay a fine of 20s. each, and costs, or a month’s imprisonment. Not being able to pay the fine, they were committed.

Morning Chronicle, March 2 1857