Every person found liable in any penalty or costs shall be liable in default of immediate payment to imprisonment for a term not exceeding three months, or until such penalty or costs are sooner paid.
18. In Ireland, offences against this Act may be prosecuted and penalties under this Act recovered in a summary manner, subject and according to the provisions with respect to the prosecution of offences, the recovery of penalties, and to appeal of the Petty Sessions (Ireland) Act, 1851, and any Act amending the same, and in Dublin of the Acts regulating the powers of justices of the peace or of the police of Dublin metropolis. All penalties recovered under this Act shall be applied in manner directed by the Fines (Ireland) Act, 1871, and any Act amending the same.
19. In Ireland, where a person is accused before a court of summary jurisdiction of any offence against this Act in respect of which a penalty of more than five pounds can be imposed, the accused may, on appearing before the court of summary jurisdiction, declare that he objects to being tried for such offence by a court of summary jurisdiction, and thereupon the court of summary jurisdiction may deal with the case in all respects as if the accused were charged with an indictable offence and not an offence punishable on summary conviction, and the offence may be prosecuted on indictment accordingly.
20. In the application of this Act to Ireland the term "the Secretary of State" shall be construed to mean the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland for the time being.
21. A prosecution under this Act against a licensed person shall not be instituted except with the assent in writing of the Secretary of State.
22. This Act shall not apply to invertebrate animals.
II.—Anæsthetics under the Act
In almost every case, the anæsthetic used is chloroform or ether; sometimes it is combined with or followed by morphia or chloral. The nature of the anæsthetic used in each case must, of course, be stated in the returns sent to the Home Office.
Of the use of ether, it need only be said that animals take it well, and that there is no difficulty in rendering them unconscious with it. With some animals, chloroform is equally good. Professor Hobday, of the Royal Veterinary College, published in 1898 an account of 500 administrations of chloroform to dogs, for operations, with only one death. Still, for dogs and cats, ether is used in preference to chloroform. Other animals take chloroform well.
Morphia is seldom used alone; but, in some cases, it is used after chloroform or ether. That morphia is a "real anæsthetic" is certain, for there are deaths every year from an over-dose of it. Again, it is certain that an animal, so far under the influence of morphia that it lies still, cannot be suffering, for the drug does not act directly on the muscles but on the higher nervous centres.