PKOXIMATE CAUSE AND PROBABLE CONSEQUENCE. 125 



accident were an exceptional or extraordinary occurrence we 

 should be disposed to think that the damage would be too re- 

 mote. Speaking without any special knowledge of the sub- 

 ject, we must confess to some surprise that cattle should be 

 ordinarily given to swallow such substances as large pieces of 

 wire ; but it is to be observed that the facts of the case in Firth 

 V. Bowling Iron Co. furnished evidence that such is the case. 

 . . . But it seems to us that the true principle which ought 

 to govern such cases was hardly sufificiently stated in the ar- 

 guments or judgments." ^* 



Where horses on a ferry-boat are frightened by a whistle on 

 another boat and a horse jumps against and breaks a defective 

 rail and is drowned, the defective rail, and not the whistle, is 

 the proximate cause of the loss as the owner of the boat ought 

 to have taken precautions against horses being frightened in 

 such a way.^^ Where animals are drowned in consequence 

 of there being no barrier on a ferry-boat, evidence is admis- 

 sible that just such a boat had been used for thirty years daily 

 without an accident occurring.*" 



Where the proprietors of a fair ground charging admission 

 had set aside a part of the grounds for target shooting with- 

 out giving notice thereof, they were held liable for the shoot- 

 ing of a horse, hitched where others were.'^ 



The owner of a colt killed by falling upon a post placed in 

 the fence about the pasture cannot recover damages of any 

 kind from the owner of another colt running at large, which 

 the former one was running to meet when the accident oc- 

 curred.*^ 



In playing foot-ball, E. trespassed on a grass-field and the 

 justices convicted him of unlawfully and maliciously doing 



" 22 Sol. Jour. 719. '" Sturgis v. Kountz, 165 Pa. St. 338. 



" Lewis V. Smith, 107 Mass. 334. 



As to what is sufficient evidence of animals having been lost in a flood 

 caused by the defendant's negligence, see Hopkins v. Butte & M. Comml. 

 Co., 16 Mont. 356. 



^ Conradt v. Clauve, 93 Ind, 476. 



^' JohanSon v. Howells, 55 Minn. 61. 



