Horses, Crocodiles

Into a Berlin courtroom there strode, last week, a prisoner named Schwarz, who scowled upon the presiding Judge and slumped heavily into a chair, his jaw jutting.

The Court was informed that Herr Schwarz' occupation was that of a cinema director specializing in "Wild West" productions. He had been arraigned upon charges preferred by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

Witnesses testified that director Schwarz had recently been at work upon a sequence in which two horses were supposed to be stampeded over the edge of a cliff. Since the cliff selected had a 50-foot clear drop, the horses refused to leap, knowing they would be killed.

Herr Schwarz barked a few terse orders. Well schooled, his helpers lashed at the horses, succeeded in urging them to a wild dash toward the cliff's edge, where they halted, reared.

Herr Schwarz tried the effects of iron rods heated in a bonfire. He tried several other ingenious devices. The horses refused to plunge from the cliff. Herr Schwarz at length desisted for the day, returned home, reflected.

According to testimony adduced last week he soon ordered the construction of a platform on the edge of the cliff. After being stampeded with whips and rods the horses rushed out upon this platform, attempted to draw back at the last moment.

The pressing of a button caused the platform to collapse. Director Schwarz sent a cameraman to photograph the writhings of the horses, both of which suffered broken legs and ribs as a result of falling upon rocky ground. Several hours later an underling, repentant, stole back and mercifully shot the horses. . . .

Having heard this evidence, the presiding Judge fined Schwarz 168 gold marks ($40), the largest fine imposable under present statutes. Herr Schwarz stiffened from his slumping posture. Slowly and insolently he selected the bills from a loose fistful. Slapping his money down before the Judge, he declared: "I can afford any number of horses at that price!"

Only a few months ago Herr Schwarz' firm, the U. F. A., one of the largest German cinema producers, was publicly censured by the S. P. C. A. for permitting one of its directors to have the jaws of several crocodiles tied shut and the animals starved in this condition in the presence of food until they became ravenous. The denouement was the filming of a scene in which "a dummy made of meat" was thrown to the crocodiles.