Capell Loft
Laws Against Cruelty to Animals
Letter to the Editor, Monthly Magazine
「1797-Sep」 Capel Lofft, letter to the editor “Laws Against Cruelty to Animals,” Monthly Magazine 4 「Google Books」4 (1797-Sep):197-198.
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine.
Sir,
A QUERY has been put in your Magazine, whether there exists any Statute which punishes cruelty to animals, simply as such, and without taking in the consideration of it as an injury to property?
I am sorry to confess that I believe the answer must be in the negative.
Accordingly several cases appear in LEACH’s CROWN LAW*.
Thus in KEAN’s cafe, indicted at the Old Bailey, Sept. 1789, for feloniously maiming a horse, the property of The KING: the jury was instructed by Mr. Just. HEATH to acquit the prisoner, it appearing the act was done in passion. against the animal, and not from malice against the owner†.
The same point was determined in a case of most atrocious cruelty against a horse‡, by cutting out his tounge, tried by Mr. Baron HOTHAM on the same statute, 9 Geo. I, c. 22, , at Old Bailey Sessions, Oct. 1790.
And there was the same determination in a most shocking cafe§, summer assizes, Gloucester, 1789, before Mr. Justice HEATH.
But I have been long convinced, and have not altered my opinion, that cruelty to all animals, committed by man (their fellow-creature, though in a different sphere, and not then their superior when so debased and depraved) is, when publicly committed in a town, or high road, an offence indictable at COMMON LAW, as a nuisance, where the cruelty is manifest and extreme; it being an evident violence against human feelings, and, at the same time, of pernicious tendency;
And, if I mistake not, that it is so indictable has been determined, though I do not find the case.
Bull-baiting and cock-throwing justly come under the consideration, at Common Law, of disorderly and dangerous sports; and, therefore, unlawful from their mischievous tendency. Accordingly, on this principle, when a person had missed his aim in cock-throwing at Shrove-tide, and a child who was looking on received a stoke from the staff, of which stroke he died, the excellent Sir MICHAEL FOSTER ruled it manslaughter. ||
By laudable exertion, and, we may hope, by improvement in knowledge and melioration of public temper, cock-throwing is, I believe, nearly extinct. It were to be wished that bull-baiting, though greatly diminished, were as much so: and that the horrid practice of cock-fighting, which is generally gambling complicated with horrid barbarity, were not suffered to exist, to the scandal of every rational and feeling mind.
Tow good bill passes (I know not how far executed*) to restrain the wanton, and often fatal, ferocity of drovers 24 Geo. III, c. 87, 21 Geo. III, c. 67, or other persons, not being drovers, pelting cattle when driving through London, or setting dogs at them. The circumstances of the times have made, and, I believe, with continue, me an absentee from London; but I do well remember this evil had arisen to a most shocking a perilous height, and I think, six years back, it seemed to have been considerably diminished.
By the 4th sect. of the last-mentioned act, the COURT of ALDERMEN is empowered to make regulation for all persons driving cattle in London or Westminster, or within the liberties or the Bills of Morality.
Sir CHARLES WHITWORTH, I believe, brought in this bill. He has also, with laudable, though unavailing, assiduity, endeavoured to prevent the miserable and dangerous necessity of driving cattle through London at all.
I remain, with great esteem, Your obliged correspondent, CAPEL LOFFT.
* Ed.2—1792
†P. 424, note.
‡Shepherd’s Cafe
§Pearce’s
||Foster’s Cr. Law, Tit. Homie. ch I. p. 262, Ed. 2. Anno 1776.
*See William’s Digest of Statute Law, Second Edition, London, 1788, p. 379.
