NEGLIGENCE AND CONTEIBUTOKY NEGLIGENCE. 387 



kicked and became frightened, the fact that he rose to his 

 feet by the reins, afterwards faUing out, was held not to show 

 contributory neghgence.^^ Nor the fact that a horse injured 

 by the bite of a dog was harnessed to a wagon and being led 

 tied behind another wagon.^^ But where the plaintiff was 

 driving along the highway with the halter twisted around his 

 thumbs and his horse started by reason of the barking of the 

 defendant's dog and his thumbs were injured, it was held that 

 the immediate cause of the injury being his negligence in so 

 arranging the halter, he could not recover.^^ 



In a New York case the rule as to contributory negligence 

 is thus stated : "If a person with full knowledge of the 

 evil propensities of an animal wantonly excites him or volun- 

 tarily and unnecessarily puts himself in the way of such an ani- 

 mal, he would be adjudged to have brought the injury upon 

 himself and ought not to be entitled to recover. In such a 

 case it cannot be said, in a legal sense, that the keeping of the 

 animal, which is the gravamen of the offense, produced the in- 

 jury. . . To enable an owner of such an animal to inter- 

 pose this defence, acts should be proved, with notice of the 

 character of the animal, which would establish that the person 

 injured voluntarily brought the calamity upon himself. . . . 

 As negligence in the ordinary sense is not the ground of lia- 

 bility, so contributory negligence in its ordinary meaning is 

 not a defence. These terms are not used in a strictly legal 

 sense in this class of actions, but for convenience. There is 

 considerable reason in favor of the doctrine of absolute lia- 

 bility for injuries produced by a savage dog, whose propensi- 

 ties are known to the owner, on the ground of its being in the 

 interest of humanity and out of regard to the sanctity of hu- 

 man life, but as these animals have different degrees of feroc- 

 ity, and the rule must be a general one, I think, in view of all 

 the authorities, that the rule of liabihty before indicated is a 



°' Meracle v. Down, 64 Wis. 323. 

 ■"' Boulester v. Parsons, 161 Mass. 182. 



" Vital V. Tetrault, Mont. L. Rep. 6 S. C. 501, reversing 4 id. 204, cited 

 in § 77, supra. 



