Record Data
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THE WILD SPORTS OF NEW YORK IN COURT. – Every week or two the “City Intelligence” columns of the daily papers contain graphic accounts of the appearance of a wild bull or an unmanageable cow in Broadway, or some other of our crowded thoroughfares. We hear of the chase, the capture, the panic among the women and children, the number of the wounded or the missing, in precisely the same way that a prairie buffalo hunt or an Indian fight is chronicled. As a general rule, the matter is forgotten the day after it has been described in the journals; but we notice by the court reports, that two parties to a recent hunt, having had a little the worst of the matter, have asked for legal redress in the shape of exemplary damages. The plaintiffs, a man and his wife, having been injured by cattle running at large in the streets, sued the butcher who owned the animals. The case did not go to the jury on the merits, the butcher setting up for his plea in defence that the cattle had not been in his possession at the time when the damage was sustained, but that they were merely in transitu, under the charge of the drovers; whereupon, as a matter of course, the case was thrown out of court.
We trust, however, that the parties concerned will not rest here, but follow it up, bringing actions against the parties who are legally responsible. There are certain corporation ordinances regulating this matter, and prohibiting the driving of cattle in Broadway; but these ordinances are broken everyday. Large numbers of cattle are driven across Broadway at Amity street, and other points, and the police take no notice of it. The Aldermen are squabbling over their dirty linen, while the streets are turned into bear-gardens. As there seems to be no other remedy, we trust that every citizen who may be injured in the same manner as the plaintiffs in the above mentioned case were, will not fail to resort to the civil courts.
