Overloaded Horses

At Ware Petty Sessions Charles Knightley, of 19 Park Lane, Waltham Cross, was summoned for cruelty to two horses by overloading, and Percy George Box, of 1 Park Lane, Waltham Cross, was summoned for causing the cruelty. 

They pleaded not guilty.  PS Herring said that on Monday, June 21, he had a complaint that Knightley’s two horses, which were attached to a mineral water van, were overloaded.  Knightley went round the corner at the bottom of Chadwell Hill, and he used his whip, and the horses commenced going up the hill at a trot.  They could not get up, and Knightley got down from the box and turned the horses backwards and forwards across the road, and urged them on.  There were two roadmen pushing the back wheels.  The horses were knocked up and in great distress.  There was much perspiration on them and they were winded.  A chain horse was procured, but even then they failed to get up the hill.  The witness asked Knightley who was responsible for the load, and he said his foreman was.  Being unable to get to Hertford, Knightley said he should deliver his load to Ware, and he came to the weighbridge at the Great Eastern Railway Station at Ware.  It weighed with the van 4 tons 6 cwt. 1 qtr..  Inspector Ellis, of the R.S.P.C.A., was then present.  Knightley said he should have got up the hill if the Sergeant had not stopped him.  Inspector Ellis said the horses were in good working condition, but the sweat had been running down their forelegs, and on the offside flanks of the mare there were both old and fresh whip cuts.  The witness went to see Box, and he said the van was loaded the night before, and Knightley asked for a third horse, but there was not one for him.  He ought to have taken off some of the load before going up the hill.  Box stated that he was in charge of Messrs. R. White’s yard at Waltham Cross.  He told Knightley that he could not have a third horse, and he was to load up for a pair.  The defendants were fined a guinea each.