■344 impounding; injuries on highways, etc. 



cause of action, which may be rebutted by showing freedom 

 from negligence.^^^ 



There have been a number of decisions as to the vahdity 

 of statutes regulating the transportation of cattle affected 

 with Texas fever. In a United States case a statute which 

 prohibited the bringing of any Texas, Mexican or Indian cat- 

 tle into a State between March i and December i in any year, 

 and provided that, if they passed through the State on board 

 of cars or steamboats, the carrier should be liable for ah the 

 contagion spread by them — was held void. The Supreme 

 Court took the ground that while a State may prevent per- 

 sons or animals sufifering from a contagious or infectious dis- 

 ease from entering its borders, and, for that purpose, estab- 

 lish reasonable quarantine and inspection laws, it may not in- 

 terfere with transportation into or through the State beyond 

 what is absolutely necessary for its protection, or, under cover 

 of exercising its police power, substantially prohibit or bur- 

 den either interstate or foreign commerce.^** This case has 

 been followed in some of the State courts.^*^ Its efifect has 

 been somewhat modified, however, by a later case, where it 

 was held that a statute making persons having in their pos- 

 session Texas cattle which have not been wintered north lia- 

 ble for any damage which may accrue from permitting them 

 to run at large and thereby spread the Texas fever — was not 

 unconstitutional. The Supreme Court said that the decision 

 in Hannibal & St. J. R. Co. v. Husen rested upon the ground 

 that no discrimination was made by the statute in the trans- 

 portation forbidden between sound cattle and diseased cattle, 

 that no attempt was made to show that all Texas, Mexican or 

 Indian cattle coming from the malarial districts through the 



^'^ Farley v. Chic, M. & St. P. R. Co., 90 la. 146. 



"* Hannibal & St. J. R. Co. v. Husen, 95 U. S. 465. 



"° Gilmore v. Hannibal & St. J. R. Co., 67 Mo. 323; Urton v. Sherlock, 

 75 id. 247; Salzenstein v. Mavis, 91 111. 391 [overruling Yeazel v. Alex- 

 ander, 58 id. 254] ; Chic. & A. R. Co. v. Erickson, 91 id. 613. 



A law declaring it to be unlawful to bring sheep into the State without 

 having them dipped discriminates between persons who may desire to 



