CHARACTER OF OBJECTS CAUSING FRIGHT. 233 



A pumping station maintained by a railroad company near 

 a highway was held not to be a nuisance, though the smoke 

 from the pumping engine sometimes settled down on the 

 road, frightening horses.*®* 



It was held in Connecticut that the owners of factories are 

 not entitled to use steam whistles so as to frighten gentle 

 horses and that it is not negligence for a driver to go on in the 

 course of his business, though he knows such a whistle is 

 likely to be blown;*®* and there is a similar decision in New 

 York.*®^ But in a well-considered Ontario case it was held 

 that the owners of lawfully operated water-works are not lia- 

 ble for damages from a horse being frightened by a steam 

 whistle used by them for their works near a highway, in the 

 absence of evidence of negligence in its use, or at least that 

 its use might be expected to cause such an accident, so ren- 

 dering it a nuisance to the highway.*®® And in a later Con- 

 necticut case, the facts were that the plaintiff's horse, fastened 

 by a rope in the street, was frightened by the defendant's fac- 

 tory whistle, pulled at the rope, which gave way, and he was 

 killed. It was found that if the whistle, which was shrill and 

 calculated to frighten ordinary horses, had not been sounded, 

 the horse would not have pulled, and that if he had been free 

 from the habit of pulling, he would not have been killed. 

 The court held, upon this finding, that his death could not be 

 regarded as caused by the negligence of the defendants and 

 that they were not liable, saying : "The use of a steam whistle 

 is not per se a nuisance. . . . Obviously the plaintiff must 

 take the risk of all known faults in the horse." *®'^ 



In Massachusetts, a city was held not liable for injuries oc- 

 casioned to a person by his horse becoming frightened, while 



"' Pettit V. N. Y. Cent. & H. R. R. Co., 80 Hun (N. Y.) 86. 

 "* Knight V. Goodyear India Rubber, etc., Co., 38 Conn. 438. 

 ""^ Albee v. Chappaqua Shoe Manufg. Co., 62 Hun (N. Y.) 223. 

 '°°Roe V. Lucknow, 21 Ont. App. i, reversing 29 Can. L. Jour. 217. 

 "" Parker v. Union Woolen Co., 42 Conn. 399. And see Grogan v. Big 

 Muddy Coal & Coke Co., 58 111. App. 154. 



