We perceive with great satisfaction that the Court of Exchequer
has overruled the view taken by the Petty Sessions of Sittingbourne, Kent, that the cruel practice of cutting cocks' combs does not come within the scope of the Act punishing cruelty to domestic animals (12 and 13 Victoria, chapter 92). The professional evidence given before the magistrates was to the effect that the process of cutting out cocks' combs is an exceedingly painful process, involving the cutting of sensitive nerves and a great tissue of blood-vessels. The question for the Court was whether the practice came under the head of those which are not abuses, but necessary for man, or done for the good of the animal on which the pain is inflicted. And the Court gave a very strong decision that the practice was an abuse, the Lord Chief Baron saying most emphatically that he considered the practice most painful, and utterly needless for the benefit of the animal, and intended chiefly to promote the cruel and illegal sport of cock-fighting. "It is cruelty, and abuse, and ill-treatment,—the three words used in the Act." Baron Cleasby strongly concurred.
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