The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1871-12-21
For the anderson Mtelligencer.
Town Cows and Town Council


on the 18th of October. With others, have
anxiously looked forward to the time when
this law should be enforced but if it has ever
been adopted it has never been published,
much less has it gone into operation After
the very general complaint about the nuisance
this law was intended to remove it is little
surprising that our municipal government have
not shown more alacrity in adopting it; and
that the nuisance is a very great one, think
admits of little doubt.
do not know the scope of the ordinance,
if any, they proposed to adopt but have
heard it was proposed simply to exclude cattle
from the public square of the Town. l would
take the liberty of suggesting to the Council
that it be made to embrace cattle, hogs, goats
indeed, every tour.tooted beast, and extend to
the utmost limits of the Town. Hogs and
Cows are our chief pests, it is true, and it is at
them am striking; but make the law general
in its subjects and extent, and it will furnish
fewer grounds of complaint.
One very great advantage to be derived from
such an ordinance is the protection it would af-
ford our trading community-i.e. C., friends from
the country-in freeing them from very serious
annoyance. 1t is discreditable, if not dis
graceful, the way these roguish town COWS hang
about the public square and steal the forage
from the wagons and carriages of our country
neighbors. They are public plunderers, and it
is much to be regretted that some one has not
been found bold enough to kill few of the
rogues particularly certain red COW remarka-
BILE for the dexterity and cunning of her depre-
dations. And I should like to know who is
responsible for this state Of things but our
Town Council? 1t won't do for them to say
that it is the duty of the owners of such cattle
to keep them up. A sense Of decency and
propriety might, it is true, constrain the own
ers to abate the nuisance; but let Council de-
clare the law and punish offenders, and the
grievance will soon cease.
But there is another and, think, greater
benefit to be derived from such alaw. Require
the owners of live stock to keep them enclosed,
and you protect persons residing within the
corporate limits from many vexatious tres
pass upon their yards and grounds. 1 know
the law, as it now stands, makes it the duty OF
persons to protect their cultivated grounds
from such trespass by lagfM fences. But l
undertake to say it is one Of the most senseless
laws upon our statute books-certainly for all
this region of country. Adopted in this State
first about the year 1894, when the whole coun-
try was one vast wilderness, grown up in wild
grasses and native pea-vine, with settlements
and cultivated fields few and far between, and
forming, you may say, one vast cattle-range'
this law has been continued, with slight modi-
fcations and changes, down to the present day.
Notwithstanding the change in the face of the
country, now thickly populated, shorn OF its
timbor and unat for oattlo grazing If there IS
any one law upon our statute books wholly
unadapted to our present condition, it is this
same fence law; and it is to be hoped the Leg
islature will not allow it to 60 unrepealed much
longer. 1t ought to have been repealed long
ago, and it is certainly competent for our town
authorities to effect change within our corpo-
porate limits, not by way of repeating stat
ute, but in enforcing police regulations; for
make it unlawful for live stock to be found at
large in our streets, and you relieve the land
owner from the necessity of keeping up his
fences. 1t is popular notion that such 9 law
would operate harshly upon the poor, BY com
pelling them to give up their hogs and COWS, as
they can't keep them enclosed and support
them. have no hesitancy in saying that a
man who is too poor to feed COW or hog has
no business with it, and he certainly. has no
right to keep it at the expense of his neighbor,
as he too often does, if permitted to roam at
large Waving actual trespasses to cultivated
fields, should like to know what reason or
natural justice there is in requiring me 70 feed
my neghbor's cattle, even off my unenclosed
grounds. My lands are my own, and because
am unable to keep them enclosed by lawful
fence, and cannot, therefore, punish my neigh
Dor for allowing his cattle to browse upon and
tramp them, that gives him no right to pas
ture them. The law gives me no remedy for
this wrong, but that gives him no right to
the privilege. The confusion of ideas on this
subject is little singular; and some people
have come to think that when you talk: about
keeping stock enclosed, you are assailing a
very dear right of theirs, which,. when
analysed, resolves itself into the privilege of
grazing their cattle upon their neighbors lands.
1t matters not if these lands are commons or
unused, the principle is the same. But you'll
never find the land-owne committing this mis-
take and it seems to me they are the people
mostly interested in the matter.
The inequality of the law, as it now stands,
is very decidedly against this class, while in
sist change would not be detrimental to the
interests of the poor man. Every man in the
community who can hire or buy house to live
in can have his patch for his COW, or can hire
to ,xtynryl ha