No. 4.] RURAL LAW. 193 



ingenious fellow once contrived a way of ridding himself 

 of their unwelcome presence by poisoning his neighbor's 

 hens. There had been repeated trespasses and warnings of 

 an intent to kill them unless they were kept away, and the 

 threat was at length carried out ; but the sufterer was sued 

 and finally had to pay roundly ; for the poisoning was held 

 by our supreme court to be an actionable wrong. Moral : 

 never poison hens, seldom shoot them ; always drive them 

 back into their own domain, if you can. 



Sivine are generally pretty safe animals to have. The 

 owner, however, must be very cautious about establishing 

 his pig pen too near his neighbor's house, and therel)y creat- 

 ing a nuisance ; but if he is complained of on that ground, 

 he had better hire a lawyer to defend him, otherwise he may 

 get himself in the fix of the farmer whom I heard of who was 

 indicted for maintaining a nuisance, namely, a piggery, who, 

 having no lawyer, argued his own case, and summed it up 

 as follows : " The neighbors say. Your Honor and gentlemen 

 of the jury, that hogs is unhealthy ; I say they aint ; look 

 at me, aint I healthy ? " 



Under the head of swine I might perhaps well add a subdivi- 

 sion of my subject, and call it "voracious hogs." An in- 

 stance of unusual hoggishness is to be found in a recent case 

 in the Pennsylvania State reports. One Stewart brought 

 his action before a justice of the peace to recover damages 

 from one Benninger for trespasses committed upon his prem- 

 ises by the defendant's hogs. He described his porcine tor- 

 mentors in the following pathetic language: "They were 

 of the slab-sided, long-snouted breed, against whose daily 

 and nocturnal visits there is no barrier. They were of an 

 exceedingly rapacious nature, and six of them, at one sit- 

 ting, devoured fifty pounds of paint, thirty gallons of soft 

 soap, four Imshels of apples and five bushels of potatoes, 

 the property of the i)laintifr. They raided the plaintiff's 

 spring-house, upset his milkcrocks and wallowed in his 

 spring; and for several years foraged upon his farm, having 

 resort to his corn, potatoes, rye and oat crops, to his garden 

 and to his orchard and meadow. They obtained an entrance 

 by rooting out his fence chunks and going under, or by throw- 

 ing down the fences, or by working the combination on the 



