600

LAWS OF MARYLAND.

March, eighteen hundred and eighty, and not
before.

Approved April 1, 1878.

CHAPTER 387.

AN ACT for the prevention of cruelty to animals
in the city of Baltimore.

Abuse of ani-
mals.

SECTION 1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly
of Maryland, That whoever shall overdrive, over-
load, overwork, torture, torment, deprive of neces-
sary sustenance, cruelly beat, mutilate or kill, or
cause or procure to be so overdriven, overloaded,
overworked, tortured, tormented, deprived of ne-
cessary sustenance, cruelly beaten, mutilated or
killed, any horse, ox or other animal, shall be pun-
ished by a fine of not less than five dollars nor
more than twenty dollars, to be recovered on corn-
plaint by any member of the Society for the Pre-
vention of Cruelty to Animals, or by any other
person, before any justice of the peace in Balti-
more city.

Maimed ani-
mals.

SEC. 2. And be it enacted, That every owner, dri-
ver or possessor, or person having charge or cus-
tody of a maimed, disabled or diseased horse, mule
or other animal, who shall cruelly work the same
when unfit for work, or cruelly abandon the same,
shall be punished in the same manner as provided
in section one.

Aid to prose-
cution.

SEC. 3. And be it enacted, That it shall be the
duty of any magistrate in the city of Baltimore,
or the judge of any court in the said city, before
whom is brought for trial any person or persons
charged with the violation of any of the provisions
of this act, to admit the President of the Society
for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, or the
counsel of said society, to aid any State's Attorney
in the prosecution of such person or persons.