Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1882-05-12
STOCK AND FENCE LAWS

III owners of unframed colts, skittish heifers
and misehievous bulls, undertook to turn
their unruIy stock into our streets, 10 roam
there day and nig Int, we should undoubtedly
complain. If in answer TO our complaints
the owners Of the intruding beasts should
tell US that if We were annoyed or injured it
was our own fault, and that the proper way
TO proceed was for the sufferers to put up
fences along the sidewalks, so that none of
the cattle could pass along them-we should
regard their suggestion as insult added to
injury. We should reply that measures for
the safety of the public should be taken by
the inh:ctors of the injury providing the
necessary measures of caution, not those
who were suffering wrong that no one has
just authority to commit Suppose, how
ever, that instead OF the cattle being turned
into the streets of city, they are
set loose among the fields and gardens OF
country settlement, where they roam about
trampling down the growing crops and de-
vouring right and left of what they choose,
what ought we to think, when those whose
property is destroyed demonstrate, if they
are lC1u W lenCS III tHSlI ueltlS luCl1
dens, then they will be safe from damage?
Should we not think that they whose prop
erty was the cause Of the injury, or OF the
liability to injury, ought to be the persons to
put up fences, if such were necessary? They
are the authors of the trouble, and it is
they who profit by it, ought not they, there
fore, to be required by the law to take the
necessary precautions against loss and injury
to the property of others, property endanger-
ed by their own proceeding? Such would
evidently be the dict ate Of common sense
and the instinct OF justice. Strange to say no
such sense of justice governs the matter :.
Men turn out cattle, horses, hogs, and other
oreaiuros --ii4, ur,yi the law says that those
who receive no advantage from that pro-
ceeding shall bear the responsibility and pay
the expense the practice entails. My neigh
Dor chooses to turn out his stock to roam at
will, and 1 must fence my fields to keep his
stock out. Ia justice, evidently, it is his
duty 10 fence his cattle in, not
mine to fence them out. In an
unsettled country, where everybody sends
his stock out on "the range" there are cir
cumstances that modify the application of
of the principle expressed above, but where
the land is chiefly cultivated it is evil
dent that the stock owner, not the crop
grower, should be the person held responsible.
The floods have cleared much of the sur
rounding country of fences; hold the stock
owner responsible for damage from his cat
tie and hogs, and blowing and sowing can
proceed without unconquerable difficulty,
but require the farmer 10 fence before he
can cultivate, and his difficulty becomes i'm
mense. The expense OF fencing adds twenty
five to thirty per cent. to the ccst of the
farm. In Mississippi and in Louisiana the
people are calling for law that shall
enable them to grow their crops without
fences, as is done in various parts Of Europe,
and to hold the owner of stock liable for
any damage his stock may do. His claim
TO protection against injury appears to be
clearly just, and certainly, especially under
present circumsi ances, demands the consider
alton of the State Legislatures.