246 INJURIES TO ANIMALS ON HIGHWAYS. 



plication, accepted the dedication of a street, is not liable for 

 injuries to animals by reason of a barbed wire fence on the 

 dedicated ground.^^® 



Where a toll-gate keeper shoots the bar at an unusual hour 

 whereby the plaintifif's horse is killed, the company is liable.^^^ 

 But where a servant washed a van in a public street and al- 

 lowed the waste water to run down and freeze as it could not 

 go through the grating, which was obstructed by ice, and 

 there was no evidence that the defendant, his master, knew of 

 the obstruction of the grating, it was held that the slipping 

 and breaking of the leg of a horse on the ice was a conse- 

 quence too remote to be attributed to a wrongful act of the 

 defendant. "Where there is no reason to expect it, and no 

 knowledge in the person doing the wrongful act that such 

 a state of things exists as to render the damage probable, if 

 injtiry does result to a third person, it is generally considered 

 that the wrongful act is not the proximate cause of the injury 

 so as to render the wrong-doer liable to an action." ^** 



Where a telegraph wire broke and fell upon a live trolley 

 wire from which electricity was transmitted through the 

 former wire to horses entangled in it, it was held in New York 

 that the electric railway company was not liable as the prox- 

 imate cause of the injury was the falling of the telegraph 

 wire.^*® But in similar cases in other States both companies 

 were held liable.^*" 



68. Contributory Negligence — The question whether the 

 plaintiff has or has not been negligent is often an important 



'" Cochran v. Shepherdsville (Ky.), 43 S. W. Rep. 250. 



"" Dudley v. Canal Bank, S La. Ann. 295. 



™ Sharp V. Powell, L. R. 7 C. P. 253. 



='" Albany v. Watervliet Turnp. & R. Co., 76 Hun (N. Y.) 136. 



'"United Elec. R. Co. v. Shelton, 89 Tenn. 423; McKay v. South. Bell 

 Teleph. & Teleg. Co., iii Ala. 337. 



And in Godfrey v. Streator R. Co., 56 111. App. 378, the street railway 

 company was held liable, as it knew or should have known of the situation 

 of the broken telephone wire in time to remove it and prevent accidents. 



