Massachusetts 1860-1872
Supplement to the General Statutes of Massachusetts
CHAPTER 344.
AN ACT FOR THE MORE EFFECTUAL PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO ANIMALS.
SECTION 1. Whoever overdrives, overloads, drives when overloaded, overworks, tortures, torments, deprives of necessary sustenance, cruelly beats, mutilates or cruelly kills, or causes, or procures, to be so overdriven, overloaded , overworked, tortured, tormented, deprived of necessary sustenance, cruelly beaten, mutilated, or cruelly killed, any animal; and whoever having the charge or custody upon the same, or unnecessarily fails to provide the same with proper food, drink, shelter or protection from the weather, shall for every such offence be punished by imprisonment in jail not exceeding one year, or by fine not exceeding two hundred and fifty dollars,, or by both such fine and imprisonment.
SECTION 2. Every owner, possessor, or person having the charge or custody of any animal, who cruelly drives or works the same when unfit for labor, or cruelly abandons the same, or who carries the same, in an unnecessarily cruel or inhuman manner, or knowingly and willfully authorizes, or permits the same to be subjected to unnecessary torture, suffering or cruelty, of any kind, shall be punished for every such offence in the manner provided in section one.
SECTION 3. No railroad company, in the carrying or transportation of animals, shall permit the same to be confined in cars, for a longer period than twenty-eight consecutive hours, without unloading the same for rest, water and feeding, for a period of at least five consecutive hours, unless prevented from so unloading by storm or other accidental causes. In estimating such confinement, the time during which the animals have been confinement, the time during which the animals have been confined without such rest on connecting roads from which prohibit their continuous confinement beyond the period of twenty-eight except upon contingencies herein before stated. Animals so unloaded shall be properly fed, watered and sheltered during such rest, by the owner or person having the custody thereof, or, in the case of his default in so doing, then by the railroad company transporting the same, at the expense of said owner or person in custody thereof.