Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 62, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 March 1912 — COURT DECIDES ODD CASE [ARTICLE]

COURT DECIDES ODD CASE

High British Tribunal Declares Men Who Carved Initials In Whale Can’t Be Punished. London. —The divisional appeal court has decided that it is not legal cruelty to stab or carve your initials on a living whale, as long as the animal is not kept in captivity. Last July a number of whales were stranded on the Cornish coast near Penzance, and the villagers commenced chopping them up, while sightseers even carved their initials on the distressed animals’ sides. Jhe Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to animals prosecuted one of the initial carvers for cruelty, but the local magistrate held that as the whales were not in captivity the ..offense did not come within the law. On appeal the society tried to prove that as the whales were surrounded by people and could not get away till the tide turned they were in a state of captivity, but Justice, Pickford, while admitting that initial carving on stranded whales was a form of amusement that ought to be punished, decided that the term “captivity’’ did not apply, and dismissed the appeal.