matter of law, three judges dissenting. The Hunter case had been up before in 112 N. Y. 371, and the same decision was then made, one judge dissenting (Andrews, J.), Peckham, ]., giving the prevailing opinion. Andrews, C. J., and O'Brien, J., who dis sented on the last appearance of the Hunter case, were dissenters in the present case. In Northern P. R. Co. 7/. Kgeland, 163 U.S. 93, the plaintiff, a common laborer in defendant's employ, returning from work on a train, was ordered by the conductor to jump off at a station when it was moving about four miles an hour, and he was injured by doing so. The question of his negligence was held to have prop erly been left to the jury. Mr. Justice Peckham gave the opinion, and endeavored to distinguish the Hunter case in 112 N. Y., in which he had given the prevail ing opinion, on the ground that in the Egeland case "there is an element of obedience to the command given by the person in charge of the train and of the crew and given to the common laborer, and upon a matter where the jury might find that the danger was not so great and so obvious as to render obedience to the order a risk to the person obeying." He speaks of the speed in the Hunter case as "quite rapid," but the testimony put it from four to eight miles an hour, while in the Kgeland case it was put between four and five. Things seem a little mixed, but possi bly the cases in the two courts are distinguishable. We are rather inclined to side with the dissenters in the New York cases, on the ground that an intending passenger might be deemed warranted in following the conductor's invitation on the spur of the mo ment. DYING DECLARATIONS. — It is gratifying to us to observe that the views which were expressed in these columns some months ago in respect to the admissibility of previous or subsequent contradictory statements to impeach dying declarations, have re ceived the approval of the United States Supreme Court. In the recent decision of Carver 7<. L'nited States, that court have declared such statements ad missible, and that no foundation need be laid, as in the case of living witnesses, by calling the witnesses' attention to such contradictory statements. The court say : " They may be contradicted in the same manner as other testimony, and may be discredited by proof that the character of the deceased was bad, or that he did not believe in a future state of rewards or punishments." Citing State i>. Elliott, 45 Iowa, 486; Cone v. Cooper, 5 Allen, 495; Goodall v. State, I Oregon, 333: Tracy v. People, 97 Ill. 101; Hill v. State, 64 Miss. 431. This decision substantiates the opinion of the New York Law Journal and our own,
opposed to that of the Harvard Law Review. 8 GREEN BAG, 223.
See
GOATS ARE "CATTLE." — In State v. Groves (N.C.), 25 S. E. Rep. 819, under a statute making it a misdemeanor to wilfully and unlawfully kill or abuse any " horse, mule, sheep, or other cattle," the court was called upon to decide whether the word "cattle," as here used, included a goat. Clark, J., who delivered the opinion, said that while the word • "cattle" was often used in a restrictive sense as applicable to the bovine species only, it had another and broader meaning, which took in all domestic animals : and the context made it evident that it was here used in the broader sense. " Indeed," said the court, "the broader sense is the more usual one. Worcester's definition, • a collective name for domes tic quadrupeds, including the bovine tribe, also horses, asses, mules, sheep, goats and swine,' was approved by this court in Randall 7'. Railroad Co., 104 N.C. 410, 413. To the same effect are the Standard, Webster and Century Dictionaries. In the Scriptures, the word 'cattle' ordinarily and usually embraces goats, notably in the contract between Laban and Jacob. Gen. xxx, 30, 32. In Decatur Hank v. St. Louis Bank, 21 Wall. 294, the word • cattle ' is held to be broad enough to include even swine. In England, the statute 9 Geo. I. ch. 22 (commonly called the ' Black Act ') made it punishable with death, without benefit of clergy, to ' maliciously and unlawfully kill any cattle.' Under this it was held that the statute embraced domestic animals other than the bovine species, as a mare, in 2 East P. C. 1074; Rex v. Paty, 2 W. Bl. 721, and ' pigs' in Rex i>. Chappe, i Russ. & R. 77." In Chesapeake & Ohio R. Co. 7>. Bank, 92 Va. 495, l Va. L. R. 825, it was held that a statute for bidding transportation companies to keep " cattle, sheep, swine, or other animals,*1 confined for a longer period than twenty-eight hours, without unloading and allowing them to rest, included horses. In State т. Dunnavant, 3 Urev. (S.C.) 9, 5 Am. Dec. 530, the term "horses,"-in a criminal statute, was held to apply to mares. "Cattle" usually includes horses and sheep (Louisville, etc., R. Co. v. Ballard, 2 Mete. [Ky.J 177); also pigs (Child v. Hearn, 9 Exch. 176); but not buffaloes, (State v. Crenshaw, 22 Mo. 457.) A domestic fowl is an animal (State г/. Bruner, in Ind. 98); and '•bird or animal" would include a gamecock (People •v. Klock, 48 Hun. 275); and tame linnets are within the protection of a statute punishing cruelty to "domestic animals." Colam v. Pagett, 12 Q. B. Div. 66. — Virginia Law Register.
