Maltreated Dog

In Brooklyn last week for the first time since 1867, when the New York state legislature passed a statute forbidding cruelty to animals, a doctor was convicted for violation of the law.

The doctor was David H. Shelling, who has been trying to determine the relation between dietary restrictions and bone formation at the Jewish Hospital in Brooklyn.

Last spring the superintendent of the Humane Society of New York visited the hospital. In Dr. Shelling's laboratory he found a mongrel dog (mostly fox terrier) with her muzzle strapped shut with adhesive tape. The dog's name was Nellie. She could not eat, drink or lick her wounds. That was cruelty, decided the humane society agent who forthwith had Experimenter Shelling arrested. David Belais, president of the humane society, raged; altered his will to cut off the Jewish Hospital from a legacy. His wife, Diana Belais, is president of the Anti-Vivisection Society of New York.

Magistrate Charles Haubert of Brooklyn knew not what allowances, under the 1867 law, he could make for Dr. Shelling's scientific experiments; found him guilty; suspended sentence.