156 INJURING AND KILLING ANIMALS. 



to the plaintiff's mare."^ In New York it was held not to be 

 negligence as a matter of law for a railway company to main- 

 tain a barbed-wire fence by which an animal is injured. It 

 may or may not be dangerous according to circum- 

 stances."* But a tenant who strung a strand of barbed-wire 

 wholly upon his own side of an existing division fence was 

 held liable to the adjoining owner for the value of a horse 

 which became entangled in the wire and was injured so that 

 it was no longer of any use to the owner.^®"* 



In Canada, in an action brought for injury to an animal by 

 a barbed-wire fence, it was held that the use of barbed-wire 

 was not unlawful if maintained in accordance with municipal 

 regulations ; otherwise its erection or maintenance becomes il- 

 legal, if it is so placed or constructed as to be dangerous to 

 others."® But in Texas it was held that the building of such 

 a fence without a board between the posts as prescribed by 

 law is not, as a matter of law, negligence so' as to render the 

 land-owner liable for an injury to a horse. "The law does not 

 say that it is negligence to construct or erect a fence different 

 from that prescribed by the law. . . . The question of negli- 

 gence was for the jury." ^*'' 



The law was thus stated in a California case : "The act of 

 the defendants in constructing the fence upon their property 



"' Bennett v. Blackmore, 90 L. T. 395. 



'" Guilfoos V. N. Y. Cent. & H. R. R. Co., 69 Hun (N. Y.) 593; Rehler 

 V. W. N. Y. & P. R. Co., 28 N. Y. St. Repr. 311. 



And see Gould v. Bangor & P. R. Co., 82 Me. 122, where it was held 

 that a company was liable where the fence had become dilapidated through 

 its neglect. So, where it has left a gate in the fence open: Savage v. 

 Chic, M. & St. P. R. Co., 31 Minn. 419. 



"" Buckley v. Clark, 21 Misc. (N. Y.) 138. 



"" Augustus V. Lynde, 29 Can. L. Jour. 301. And see Bessette v. How- 

 ard, 8 Leg. News (Can.) 170. 



"' Hester v. Windham (Tex. Civ. App.), 27 S. W. Rep. 1078. And see 

 Brown v. Cooper, 10 Tex. Civ. App. 512. 



That a barbed-wire fence is not per se a nuisance, see Robertson v. 

 Wooley, S Tex. Civ. App. 237; Presnall v. Raley (Tex. Civ. App.), 27 S. 

 W. Rep. 200; Worthington v. Wade, 82 Tex. 26. 



