LADY'S LEG DISFIGURED.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 27 September 1927, Page 7

LADY'S LEG DISFIGURED.

BITE FROM A DOGL

CLAIM FOE DAMAGE FAILS.

A woman's leg was the chief exhibit in an action hoard in the Supreme Court at Hamilton on September 14th before Mr. Justice Herdman. Its daintiness was disfigured by an indentation in the calf.where the teeth of a dog had fastened themselves. The disfigurement could be discerned beneath the woman's short check skirt and through her grey silk stockings. Other exhibits in the case were photographs of the heads of two dogs, each with the jaw open, and the judge was set the task of deciding which of the dogs (now both dead) had inflicted the injury to the woman. It seems that one day last April Clive Matthews, farmer, of Hamilton, paid a business. visit to the house of Emily Langman Eveleigh, widow, of Otorohanga. He had with him a cattle dog, and Mrs Eveleigh also owned a dog of similar breed, and it was not long before the two quarrelled in the customary manner, first snarling, and then freely attacking each other. At some timeduring the battle or just before it, Mrs Eveleigh was bitten by one of the animals in the calf of her right leg. A gaping wound was caused, and muscles and fibres were left protruding. As a result the woman suffered much shock and was in pain for three weeks and had to undergo an operation. Mrs Eveleigh contended that it was Matthews' dog that bit her and she claimed £314.

The defence was that the injuries were caused in the course of a fight between'the dogs of plaintiff and defendant and that plaintiff was bitten by her own dog. Mr. A. Mossman, who appeared for the plaintiff, said that she was not bitten during the fight, but before it. Her dog was quiet, friendly and affectionate, and she had owned it for some years. When Matthews came on the scene she moaned "Oh, Mr. Matthews! Your brute of a dog has bitten me." Matthews replied: "My dog could not bite you as it has no teeth. " Counsel then submitted a photograph of the nead of Matthews' dog with jaws apart, showing a full mouth of savage looking teeth. The wound in the leg, said counsel, had permanently disfigured the symmetry of the limb, and in these days of silk stockings and short skirts disfigurement of this kind was a serious thing to a lady. The judge said that the evidence given for the plaintiff confirmed in many respects the testimony of defendant's witnesses that it was plaintiff's dog and not defendant's that bit her. Judgment was given for defendant with costs.