LAW FOR TEE FARMER. 329 



Towns are bound by the statute to make a pound, I think the 

 exact language of the statute is "to maintain a town pound." 

 That provision is sometimes evaded by a vote of the town, that the 

 barn or barn-yard of a certain man shall be a pound. I am inclined 

 to think that that would be reckoned maintaining a town pound. 



Then with regard to suits in trespass. If you seek a remedy in 

 law, it is by a suit for trespass, and that is plain and clear, and the 

 claim for damages attaches to the animal, I understand the law 

 to be as it has been stated to you. Whether it is exempt under 

 the general provisions of exemption or not, you seize the animal 

 and hold it, if you proceed right, for the damage which the animal 

 has done, against all parties. You strike at the thing, instead of 

 the man, the owner, and hold it. It is a special provision of the 

 statute, having no force in aoy other instance that occurs to me, 

 except in the one instance of taxation, as has been stated. 



Now let me relate to you a little of my experience in this mat- 

 ter of suing for trespass. Cases occur very often, and they are 

 the worst cases for a lawyer, because they are almost always the 

 result of an ebullition of temper. A man sues his neighbor be- 

 cause he got mad with him about his cattle. You see how vexa- 

 tious such suits are. They are almost entirely costs, with no 

 damages. The law regulating costs is, that wherever trespass is 

 committed on your premises, wherever a man touches your soil, no 

 matter how lightly, you may sue in the Supreme Court, and have 

 your full costs. Ordinarily, if you recover less than twenty dol- 

 lars damages, you cannot recover as costs more than one quarter 

 the amount of the damages ; but this is an exception. What is the 

 result? Why, cattle break in over your lines and eat a little of 

 your grass. You drive them out once and notify the owner. He 

 refuses to take care of them. Perhaps, when you go and ask him 

 about it, he will tell you that your cattle trespass upon him. You 

 deny it, get into a controversy, and bad blood arises, and by-and- 

 bye comes the sheriff, and suits back and forth. Now, all in the 

 world there is in them is vexation and trouble and costs, and all 

 growing out of bad blood ; and hence the aphorism, that the law 

 makes the worst line fence in the world. I know of repeated in- 

 stances where parties have spent time enough and money enough 

 to settle a little controversy, which did not involve damage to the 

 amount of four and sixpence, to build a hundred rods of good yoke 

 fence. 



Mr. Lebroke. That is so, over and over again. 



