2.
- 1. Between hushand and wife, those acts which affect the life, the
health, or even the comfort of the party aggrieved, and give a
reasonable apprehension of bodily hurt, are called cruelty. What merely
wounds the feelings is seldom admitted to be cruelty, unless the act be
accompanied with bodily injury, either actual or menaced. Mere austerity
of temper, petulance of manners, rudeness of language, a want of civil
attention and accommodation, even occasional sallies of passion, will
not amount to legal cruelty; 17 Conn. 189; a fortiori, the denial of
little indulgences and particular accommodations, which the delicacy of
the world is apt to number among its necessaries, is not cruelty. The
negative descriptions of cruelty are perhaps the best, under the
infinite variety of cases that may occur, by showing what is not
cruelty. 1 Hagg. R. 35; S. C. 4 Eccles. R. 311, 312; 2 Hagg. Suppl. 1;
S. C. 4 Eccles. R. 238; 1 McCord's Ch. R. 205; 2 J. J. Marsh. R. 324; 2
Chit. Pr. 461, 489; Poynt. on Mar. & Div. c. 15, p. 208; Shelf. on
Mar. & Div. 425; 1 Hagg. Cons. R. 37, 458; 2 Ragg. Cons. Rep. 154; 1
Phillim. 111, 132; 8 N H. Rep. 307; 3 Mass. 321; 4 Mass. 487. It is to
be remarked that exhibitions of passion and gusts of anger, which would
be sufficient to create irreconcilable hatred between persons educated
and trained to respect each other's feelings, would, with persons of
coarse manners and habits, have but a momentary effect. An act which
towards the latter would cause but a momentary difference, would with
the former, be excessive cruelty. 1 Briand Med. Leg. 1 ere part. c. 2,
art. 3.
3.
- 2. Cruelty towards weak and helpless persons takes place where a
party bound to provide for and protect them, either abuses them by
whipping them unnecessarily, or by neglecting to provide for them those
necessaries which their helpless condition requires. To expose a person
of tender years, under a party's care, to the inclemency of the weather;
2 Campb. 650; or to keep such a child, unable to provide for himself,
without adequate food; 1 Leach, 137; Russ. & Ry. 20 or an overseer
neglecting to provide food and medical care to a pauper having urgent
and immediate occasion for them; Russ. & Ry. 46, 47, 48; are
examples of this species of cruelty.
4.
- 3. By the civil code of Louisiana, art. 192, it is enacted, that when
the master shall be convicted of cruel treatment of his slave, the
judge may pronounce, besides the penalty established for such cases,
that the slave shall be sold at public auction, in order to place him
out of the reach of the power which his master has abused.
5.
- 4. Cruelty to animals is an indictable offence. A defendant was
convicted of a misdemeanor for tying the tongue of a calf so near the
root as to prevent its sucking, in order to sell the cow at a greater
price, by giving to her udder the appearance of being full of milk,
while affording the calf all he needed. 6 Rogers, City Hall Rec. 62. A
man may be indicted for cruelly beating his horse. 3 Rogers, City Rec.
191.
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