A REMARKABLE HORSE.

Wanganui Herald, Volume V, Issue 1427, 23 March 1872, Page 2

A REMARKABLE HORSE.

Some extraordinary vagaries on the part of a horse wore related in the jsfelbuurne County Court on the 9th Peb. The animal seems to be afflicted with this peculiarity—it wants always to bo on the wrong side of the fence Put it into a good clover paddock and it would leap the fence into tho most barren of fields, either for the sake of being contrary, or for the sake of the jump, or for the fun of the thing—it is not exactly clear which. It is full of high animal spirits, and always makes its neighbourhood lively, and it has compelled the unfortunate persons who have had to take charge of it to ride scores of involuntary steeplechases. On one occasion a farmer found it in his field. He mounted his horse,

and endeavored to turn if; into its owner's field. The animal, however, jumped into a third person's ground, and the farmer thinking he might be liable for it if it stopped there, jumped after it^&yi. made it return to its owtHßW^' where it stopped contentedly, apparently labouring under the delusion that ife was still on the wrong side of the fence. On another occasion, it jumped for pure mischief into a creek, the bank 3of which were steep and about n've feet high. Before its terrified owner could devise means to rescue it from its seemingly dangerous position, it scrambled back again, The particular j ump which resulted in the action in the County Court on Feb. 9, was out of a pound ovei a fence sft. 9in. high. William Cameron, its owner, sued John Oakes, the Ksw pounder, for £19 damages, caused through his negligence iv losing the animal. It Lad been impounded" and defendant had put it into his paddock. As it commenced to betray an inclination to get out, defendant drove it_ into his yard, the fence of which, with the cap rail on it, was upwards of nite feet high. While endeavoring to halter it, it pub ifcs fore feet on the cap, knocked ifc down, and off it went. A day or two after ife was found in the Warrandyte pound, and' the plaintiff now sought to recover the expenses he had incurred His case was mainly that the Kew pound fence was rotten, and inadequate to hold auy horse. The defendant, contended that the pound was reasonably secure, and that plaintiff's horse was the first that had broken out of if. Judge Pohlman gave a verdict for the defendant, with M5 os costs.