The Express.
London, England, 1867-09-27 00:00:00

NIGH WATIR AT LONDON =IDOL

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10410ba011—Mornla4. lb. Gia.. —Afternoon. 201 2001.

LONDON, PRWAY, SEPTEMBER 27.

Tim Buckingham Bench of Magistrates, of
which Mr. R. Frrzomme is Chairman, having
allowed their decision in the case of the Rev. Mr.
HARLEY, Rector of Turweston, to remain before
the public for a week uncontradicted and unex-
plained, are no doubt content that the judgment
of the public should be formed on the facto as they
have already appeared. We are not sure that
that judgment will not be oven more unfavourable
to the magistrates than to the reverend defendant.
It will be remembered that Mr. HARLICY was sum-
moned before the Bench to answer a charge of
cruelty in having tortured a dog. It appeared that
a few Sundays ago, the reverend gentleman, on
returning from church after evening prayer,
found on the rectory premises a dog belonging to
a neighbour, whereupon ho called his man servant
and unfolded a plan by which the animal was to
be made to remember for ever his visit to the
.steed enclosure he had invaded. Turpentine was
to be applied to the most sensitive of the dog's
membranes, " and then," said the Rector, "he
" will not come here again." The servant seems
to have been unprepared for this extreme pro-
posal, and suggested that a pail of water might
be found sufficiently deterrent for his mas-
ter's purpose ; the latter, however, replied, " Oh,
" no, water has not the same effect as turpentine."
The " effect " of turpentine upon the human
cuticle is well known ; it is highly stimulant,
causing redness, the result of inflammation. It
was not to a cuticular surface, however, that Mr.
HARLEY intended to apply this irritant. He
and the servant held the dog up, and poured
the spirit upon the root of its tail. The
effect upon the adjacent sensitive membrane of
the creature was soon apparent, and was such as
the chief operator had desired. The dog ran first into
a pit, and then into the village, howling, yelping,
and running round and round in the attempt to
reach his hind quarters with his tongue, and allay
his intense agony. The next day a police con-
stable was employed to discover the perpetrator of
the cruelty ; Mr. HARLEY met him on his way, and
acknowledged that it was he who bad thus treated
the dog. From that moment it became an inte-
resting question how local justice would regard
the deed. What would have been thought of such
an act in a groom or a farm servant was a point
not admitting of much doubt ; but this was a
very different case. When a culprit without
character or position is outraged, it is a simple
matter to apply the elementary principles of jus-
tice to him. There is the deed, with a complexion
fixed and incontestable, and there the evidence
bringing it home to the perpetrators. Under such
circumstances conviction is a matter of course.
But when the chief man in a community, whether
large or small, does that which, at a first glance,
strikes spectators as wrong, it generally happens
that an attempt is made to throw a new light
upon old morality. While some judge the
man by the act, others insist upon judging the
act by the man, and very often prevail. There
are plenty to maintain that what a person of
established virtue can do without being ashamed
of it must be fundamentally right, although the
vulgar may carp and cavil. Any doubts and
misgiving of this kind which might have perplexed
the simple-minded inhabitants of Turweston were
soon solved. The case came under the notice
of the Royal Society for the Prevention of
Cruelty to Animals--a body which has dune,
and is doing, good, immense good, by carrying
the humane ideas which modern society has
accepted into the leas civilized parts of the
country, and diffusing them among classes of persons
brutalised by isolation and long neglect. A charge
of cruelty founded on the foregoing facts was pre-
ferred before the Buckingham bench, and the
evidence was as clear as could be desired. The
facts were not denied, but the defence was that
the act was not one of cruelty, because it had for
its object the ridding of the rectory of a nuisance.
The argument seems to be that there is no cruelty
where there is no wanton delight in the infliction
of harm. What is commonly regarded as cruelty
loses that character as soon as it becomes economic.
The question whether it is proper to subject an
animal to excruciating torment in order to prevent
the possible return of a alight personal inconveni-
ence is one, however, which may be left to com-
mon sense. The Buckinghamshire magistrates
were not long in deciding upon this case. Taking
the performance of the act alleged against Mr.
HARLEY as " undoubted and confessed," they de-
clared that it was not contrary to law, and dis-
mimed the complaint. Further, by awarding
costs to the defendant, they practically showed that
they thought they ought not to have been troubled
with the case. Had they stopped here, we
might have wondered at the mysterious dis-
pensation which ordains that the same law should
receive in country districts an interpretation so very
different from that which it receives in towns, and
which permits squires all the year round to render
judgments in the teeth of principles laid down by
learned judges and magistrates. But they went
further, and betrayed the animus which governed
their practical decision. They had " much plea-
" sure " in declaring, by the month of Mr. Frrz-
osmi.n, their chairman, that "Mr. HARLEY leaves
" this court without a stain upon his reputation
"as a Christian minister, a gentleman, and a