A German society which tries to punish and prevent cruelty
to animals seems to have special work on its hands just now, no less than its English ally. At Bremen it has been prosecuting two gentlemen, one of whom for a bet bit off the end of a cat's tail while the other held the cat for that purpose,—and their de- fence was that it was an operation conducive to the convenience of the cat, an assertion in proof of which they produced a veterinary surgeon, who gave positive evidence to that effect. The gentlemen were convicted of transgressing the law, and fined twenty dollars (about £3) ; but the veterinary surgeon, who ought to have been prosecuted for perjury, seems to have escaped. it would really have conduced to the comfort and convenience of society if his deceiving tongue could have been curtailed by an equal magnitude,—and quite as much to his own convenience as the brutality in question did to that of the cat.
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