Shocking Cruelty to Pony – House of Correction for three months (illustration)

December 1884

Daily Gazette for Middlesbrough – Tuesday 23 December 1884

The Shocking Cruelty to a Pony – House of Correction for three months

At the West Riding Police Court, Rotherham, on Monday, two youths, Walter Hartley and George Henry Morris, trammers, employed at Denaby Main Colliery, were committed to the House of Correction for three months, without the option of a fine, for pulling a pony’s tongue out.

A pony was not able to pull the run of corves which was yoked to it, and one of the prisoners put a belt round the animal’s tongue, twitched it tight, and then dragged it by the head from one side to the other. He then handed the pony over to the other prisoner, who dragged its tongue out.

The animal was worked in that condition for upwards of an hour.