194 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



gate. These hogs were breachy, and the plaintiff notified 

 the defendant, several times, to shut them up, and the last 

 time told him if he did not shut them up, he would ; and 

 the defendant replied, ' Shut them up and be damned.'" To 

 the credit of Pennsylvania justice be it said that the plaintiff 

 was allowed to recover damages for the ill-bred and unman- 

 nerly conduct of the hogs. 



Dogs. — But all other domestic animals fade into insignifi- 

 cance in comparison with the dog. While not so highly 

 regarded by the law as useful domestic animals, property in 

 dogs is recognized, and they are the sul)ject of larceny. In 

 fact, the ownership of a dog once established, it is sometimes 

 very difficult to rid oneself of such ownership. There seems 

 to be no way but to kill the creature. Hardly any case in 

 the courts attracts the crowd so genuinely as the dog case. 

 The horse case alone can rival it. My old partner used to 

 say that in his young professional days he went down to 

 Plymouth and spent a week in trying the moral character of a 

 dog, and it took pretty nearly all the inhabitants of one country 

 town to settle that important question. I myself had a case 

 once where a street railway company was sued for running 

 one of its cars over a dog owned by the plaintiff. He was a 

 worthless cur, but his value was greatly enhanced when the 

 street car made mince meat of him. We tried the case a 

 day or two, but the jury were so confused by the conflicting 

 evidence, and perhaps by the eloquence of counsel, that they 

 disagreed. Almost always, when I meet the gentleman who 

 appeared on the other side of the case, he expresses his regret 

 that we didn't have another trial, to settle all the important 

 questions that were left suspended by the mis-trial we had. 



A curious dog case came up in Norfolk County in 1894. 

 The plaintiff was driving an express wagon drawn by a pair 

 of horses, in the rear of which and attached to it by the reins 

 was another horse harnessed to a sinofle waoron. The defend- 

 ant's dog ran out and bit the horse attached to the single 

 wagon, in consequence of which the horse died, and suit was 

 brought. The defendant contended that it was negligence on 

 the part of the plaintiff to lead a horse behind, harnessed 

 and attached to another wagon. The plaintiff requested the 

 presiding judge to instruct the jury that a man had a right 



