which the owner has knowledge. The pro pensity from which the injury comes need not be the result of a wicked or perverted character, a ferocious nature. It is only necessary to show that the propensity brings to pass an injury, and that such a disposi tion to do that which proved to be harm is known to the owner. A court aptly illus trates this point by saying that one might have a domesticated bear that manifested its affection by hugging until ribs be broken. The owner might be able to prove that the habit of embracing persons did not proceed from the savage nature of the bear, but un der the influence of civilization from a cul tivated affection. But this proof would not avail the owner in a suit by a party em braced. Such a propensity would be held to be mischievous, because hurtful to those who were the object of the bear's affection. Likewise it will not avail to say that your dog bites people only in fun, that his snap ping and missing your leg by a hair's breadth is only out of the exuberance of his affection for you, to be playful and good natured. This was tried in a case. The defendant contended that although several persons had been bitten by the dog, of which he had information, yet it appeared in every instance the biting occurred while the dog was in a playful mood, and consequently that damages could not be recovered where it was shown that the dog had a propensity to bite only in play. To recover it must appear that the dog was in the habit of biting mankind while in an angry mood, actuated by a ferocious spirit. The court refused to affirm such a position to be the law, remarking, an action can be main tained against the owner by a party injured upon evidence that the dog, with the knowl edge of the owner, had a mischievous pro pensity to bite mankind, whether in anger or not. In either case the persons bitten would suffer injury, a mischievous propensity being a propensity from which injury is the nat ural result. In this case the plaintiff was
bitten in the hand, the hand broke out, the man became nervous, lost sleep, suffered pain, employed a physician, paid for medi cines, lost two or three weeks' wages, and was out of pocket in money, about twentyfive dollars. The verdict of the jury was for three hundred dollars, the court direct ing that the damages could not be meas ured by mere expenditure of money to cure from effect of the bite. Compensa tion should be made for the pain and the anxiety of mind which must necessarily fol low the bite of a dog. In a case where a small girl was badly bitten, a verdict of $1,450 damages was sustained. The amount of the damages vary greatly in the many cases of injury from bite of dog, from sev eral times the expenses of a trip to Paris, to the Pasteur Hospital, down to passage one way and steerage back. There is a case on record of a good bull — a probable freak of nature. He was gentle and quiet, a very respectable bull. However, he lost all sense of propriety and decorum at the sight of anything red, of which failing his owner admitted he was aware. The plaintiff came walking along the street, wearing a red handkerchief. He had a right to be walking in the street and to wear all the red handkerchiefs in Chris tendom in defiance of all the bulls, if he so desired. The gentle, quiet bull, that had never been known to gore any person, could not submit to such assertion of a citizen's right, and he attacked and gored the plain tiff. The defense was that the red handker chief caused the trouble. The plaintiff recovered, for while the bull had no hostile feeling against the man he injured and no disposition to gore mankind, yet, because of his mischievous propensity to rush at a red object, of which the owner knew, it was held that when he caused injury to the plain tiff through that propensity his owner should pay the damages. In a Vermont case it appeared that Mrs. Oakes was driving cows home from pasture
