On the night of Saturday last, the hunting stud of
Captain Steed, of Clonsilla, County Dublin, consisting of thirty-eight horses, was poisoned. The animals were fed as usual on Satur- day night, but on the following morning one of them was dis- covered dead, and the rest evidently suffering severely. Though skilled veterinary-surgeons were at once summoned, it proved impossible to rescue the greater part of the stud. Already seven- teen of the poisoned horses—some of very great value—have died in fearful agonies, while others are reported to be in a con- dition from which they are not likely to recover. A portion of the food left by the horses, and found on the Sunday morning, when given to a fowl at once proved fatal. It is assumed that the poison was mixed in a boiler from which the horses were fed. In the neighbourhood of Clonsilla it is regarded as almost certain that the poisoning was an outrage committed by some person desiring to injure Captain Steed. The inhuman cruelty of such a wholesale poisoning would, however, in any country but Ireland be a strong argument in favour of regard- ing the occurrence as due to some accidental cause. In Ireland, unfortunately, the frightful callousness shown towards the sufferings of animals forbids such an argument. It may, of course, turn out that, after all, it was some corrosion of the boiler that poisoned the bran-mash ; but among a population where the mutilation and burning of cattle are so common, the Nationalists can hardly complain if the poisoning is not, till proof is produced, regarded as an accident.
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