Horse theft is the crime of stealing horses. A person involved in stealing a horse is known as a horse thief . Horse theft is very common throughout the world before car ownership expands. Punishment is often severe for horse theft, with some cultures announcing the death penalty for actual or suspected thieves. Some societies were formed in the US to prevent theft of horses and capture horse thieves. However, horse theft continues to occur around the world, like horses stolen for their flesh, for ransom, or in disputes between owner and others. Horse theft is currently comparable to Car theft; a crime punishable by a crime prison time. Horses and cars are a valuable commodity.
Video Horse theft
History
Europe
Horse theft is a well-known crime in medieval and early modern times and is demanded harshly in many areas. While many crimes are punished intentionally or ritually disposed, horse theft often carries severe penalties, including branding, torture, exile and even death. According to one of the 18th century treatises, the use of death as a punishment for theft of horses stretches back as far back as the first century AD, when the Germanic Chaudi tribes would punish horse thieves to death, while murderers would be fined. This practice comes from the wealth of the population in the form of livestock ranging in large areas, which means that animal theft can only be prevented through fear of the harsh punishment that will occur.
Horse theft was rudely punished in the French region of Bordeaux in the 15th-18th century. Penalties range from whipping up to life sentences on a galley ship. This last punishment is also given to the perpetrators of incest, murder and poisoning, indicating the severity of horse theft seen by the court. For rural England Berkshire in the 18th century, horse theft was considered a major property crime, along with stealing from dwellings or warehouses, sheep theft, highway robberies and other large thefts. In nineteenth-century Russia, horse theft became about 16 percent of the theft of farmers' property; However, there are no reports of horse theft from plantation properties. The offense of stealing a horse is the most severe punishment of any theft in a Russian plantation, because of the importance of horses in everyday life. Storms are a common punishment for horse thieves, combined with shaved heads and beards, and a fine of up to three times the value of a horse if the animal has been sold.
United States
The term horse thieves became popular in the United States during the 19th century. During that time, the states of Great Plains, Texas, and other western countries were sparsely populated and under-supervised. When farmers work the land and migrants head west past the Great Plains, their horses are subjected to theft. Because these peasants and migrants rely on their horses, the horse thieves garner a very bad reputation because they leave their victims powerless or severely disabled by the loss of their horses. The victims need their horses for transportation and agriculture. Such a denial leads to the use of the term horse thieves as an insult, one that conveys the impression of an insulted person as someone who lacks the slightest moral courtesy.
In the United States, the Anti-Thieves Association, first held in 1854 in Clark County, Missouri, is an organization developed for the purpose of protecting property, especially horses and other cattle, from theft, and restoring the property if and when it was stolen. Originally conceived by farmers living in areas where Missouri, Illinois and Iowa intersected, it soon spread, with the first charter organization in the Oklahoma Region made in 1894. In 1916, the corresponding number of over 40,000 members in nine US states middle and west, and a drop of horse theft has been recorded.
Between 1899 and 1909, members of the Oklahoma branch of AHTA recovered cattle worth $ 83,000 and saw the beliefs of more than 250 thieves. Similar groups, which operate mainly in Ohio, are the Bentonville Horse Anti-Theft Society. Men who are suspected of being thieves will be chased by members of the organization, and often hanged without trial. Society in Dedham for Apprehending Horse Thieves is the third organization operating in the United States, this one in Dedham, Massachusetts. This is now "the oldest horse thief organization ever to exist in the United States, and one of the most venerable social organizations by Dedham." Most of these clubs became dead or progressed into social clubs with decreased theft of horses in the US.
Maps Horse theft
Today
Horse theft is still relatively common, with an estimated 40,000 horses per year taken from their rightful owners by strangers or opponents in civil or law disputes. Stolen Horse International is one of the modern US organizations that works to reconnect horses stolen with their owners. Horses are sometimes stolen because of their flesh, or sometimes for ransom. The penalty for horse theft can still be severe, like a woman in Arkansas sentenced to 60 years in prison for the theft of five horses and equestrian equipment of 2011; one of the horses was later found dead, while the other was found. Theft of horses today can in some cases be solved through the use of microchips, which are required in the EU on horses born after 2009 and also often seen in other countries.
See also
- The rustling sound of farm animals
Footnote
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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