NUISANCES ; DISEASED AND DEAD ANIMALS. 357 



pen were not sufficient alone to constitute a nuisance, yet if 

 it contributed with other pens in the neighborhood to form- 

 ing a nuisance, he would be guilty. "The defendant can only 

 be held liable for the consequences which his act produced. 

 The mischief complained of must be the natural and direct 

 cause of his own act." ^*® 



Under statutes giving the power to define nuisances and 

 to regulate and control the keeping of animals in a town 

 it was held that the court could not declare that an ordinance 

 making it unlawful to keep any hog within the corporate 

 limits of the town was void for unreasonableness.^*^ So it 

 was held that open cattle yards and pens were nuisances 

 which might be abated under an ordinance prohibiting the 

 keeping of cattle within the corporate limits.^** On the 

 other hand, an ordinance making it a nuisance to erect hog- 

 pens within city limits or to permit hogs to run at large in any 

 lot or enclosed place in the city, except at certain designated 

 places and directing that all such lots and pens be abated was 

 held invalid, as being too broad and sweeping.^*® So, a by- 

 law that no pig or piggery should be kept within a city was 

 held to be ultra vires as being a general prohibition against 

 the keeping of pigs and not restricted to cases that might 

 prove to be nuisances.^^" 



Where it is made a penal offense to "keep" swine within 

 fifty yards of a dwelling-house, it was held that one who sold 

 them elsewhere in the morning, brought them within the fifty 

 yards and sent them off in the evening, was guilty, it not be- 

 ing necessary to the offense to keep them all night.^^^ But a 



dictment for keeping cattle-pens, see Com. v. T. J. Megibben Co. (Ky.), 

 40 S. W. Rep. 694. See also 38 L. R. A. 332 n. 



"" Gay V. State, 90 Tenn. 645. 



°" Darlington v. Ward, 48 S. C. 570. This was on the ground that the 

 colirt could pass only on the constitutionality of the ordinance. The de- 

 cision was by a divided court. 



"" Opelousas Bd. of Aldermen v. Norman (La.), 25 South. Rep. 401. 



-" Ex parte O'Leary, 65 Miss. 80. ''° McKnight v. Toronto, 3 Ont. 284. 



'"' Steers v. Manton, 57 J. P. 584. 



