Cruelty

The intentional and malicions iniliction of physical suffering upon living creatures, particularly human beings; or, a8 applied to the latter, the wanton, malielous, and unnecessary infliction of pain upon the body, or the feelings and emotions; abujive treatment; inhumanity; outrage. Extreme cruelty is the iniliction of grievous bodily injury or grievous mental suffering upon the other by one party to the marriage. Civil Code Cal. § 94, As between husband and wife. Those acts which affect the life, the health, or even the comfort, of the party aggrieved, and give a reasonable apprehension of bodily hurt, are called “cruelty.” What merely wounds the feelings is seldom admitted to be cruelty, unless the act be accompanied with bodily injury, either actual or menaced. Mere austerity of temper, petulance of manners, rudeness of language, a want of civil attention and ac commodation, even occasional sallies of passion, will not amount tolegal cruelty; a fortiori, the denial of little indulgeuces and particular accommodations, which the delicacy of the world is apt to number among its necessarics, is notcrueity. The negative descriptions of cruelty are perhaps the best, under the infinite variety of cases that may occur, by showing what is not cruelty. 1 Hagg. Cruelty Includes both willfulness and malicious temper of mind with which an act is done, as well asa high degree of paininflicted. Acts merely accidental, though they inflict great pain, are uot “cruel,” in the sense of the word as used in stat utes aguinst cruelty, 101 Mass. 34,