The Ketchum keystone. [volume] (Ketchum, Idaho) 1885-1899, 1894-10-06
FOULED THE FOWLS.
A Massachusetts Man Lays Out
His Neighbors Hens.
It Was Not . C.sc Of Assault, But Salt
Was Used In tho Proceeding and.
the Law Took the Part Of
the SalteF.

AS stirrer-up of litigation and q
promoter of quarrels and divisions be-
tween next-door neighbors the suburb
an hen is without an equal, says the
baltimore Sun. She illustrates most
forcibly in her daily life and practices
the reprehensible habits which st. Paul
go strongly condemns in women. She
is constitutional busybody, always
eager to be gadding about, and con-
sumed with an unquenchable and in
satiablc curiosity. No matter how big
a yard she has of her own, she is
never satisfied until she can get into
the adjoining premises and discover
what is going on over there. If there
are any other hens there, nothing de-
lights her more than tocreate feeling
of jealousy in their hitherto peaceful
and happy home, or to involve her hus-
band in mortal combat with some
neighboring knight of the spurs. 1t
there are any flowers, fruit or vegeta-
lies, she derives the keenest enjoyment
from their destruction. Then stones
and other missiles darken the sky, the
atmosphere grows sulphurous with un-
complimentary epithets and there is
personal collision, or a law suit be-
tween the ncighbors, while the ficndish
cause Of broken friendships and ir-
ritated tempcrs flies safely back to her
own lot and goes industriously to
scratching as if she had never been off
the premises and had been devoting
her entire attention and thought to
preparations for numerous family.
But sometimes suburban hens make
a fatal mistake, as they did in Maiden,
Mass, the other day. A poultry
fancier there had stocked his yard
with some very aristocratic fowls OF
the feminine gender, but no amount OF
good blood can drown feminine curiosi-
ty, and SO these well-brcd hens acted
just as ill-bred ones would have done,
making frequent excursions into the
adjoining yard. The ncighboring pro-
prietor did not like hens, and as they
would come where they were not
premises. The hens, like Eve, ate
grecdily and death was the result.
Too much salt is fatal to hens, but they
do not know it, and they will eat it till
they expire when they can get it.
Possibly the habit is due to an un-
selfish desire to salt their eggs SO Well
in. advance that their masters will
have no trouble about the matter at
the breakfast table, but we are rather
inclined to think it proceeds from
desire to do precisely what they should
not.
But to return to the salt-eating hens
of Maiden. When their proprietor
learned how his hens had been salted
down while still alive, he sued the
salter, whether for assault or not is
not stated. He got nothing, however,
not even pinch Of salt, for the
learned Judge Pettingill held that a
man has a right to scatter salt on his
own premises, and that hens should
stay at home and mind their own busi-
ness. If they go abroad and get On a
salt spree, and then go up salt river,
their owner must accept the result of
their rashness. To prevent such un-
pleasant occurrences in our own
suburbs amateur Baltimore poultry
men would do well to have good
fences around their property and to
cut one wing of the too inquisitive
female fowl. In addition it might be
well to send for Prof. Hamerik, of the
Peabody institute, who is said to be
thoroughly conversant with hen
language, and get him to lecture to
the assembled egg-producers on the
sin and danger of scratching in the
next yard, enforcing his remarks with
the tragic story Of the Maiden hens.