Henry Billings Brown

“ For instance, meats, fruits, and vegetables do not cease to become private property by their decay; but it is clearly within the power of the state to order their destruction in times of epidemic, or whenever they are so exposed as to be deleterious to the public health. ”

“ Acting upon the principle that there is but a qualified property in them, and that, while private interests require that the valuable ones shall be protected, public interests demand that the worthless shall be exterminated, they have, from time immemorial, been considered as holding their lives at the will of the legislature, and properly falling within the police powers of the several states. Laws for the protection of domestic animals are regarded as having but a limited application to dogs and cats ”

“ As it is practically impossible by statute to distinguish between the different breeds, or between the valuable and the worthless, such legislation as has been enacted upon the subject, though nominally including the whold canine race, is really directed against the latter class, and is based upon the theory that the owner of a really valuable dog will feel sufficient interest in him to comply with any reasonable regulation designed to distinguish him from the common herd. ”

“ If they are given in by the owner to the assessor, and placed upon the assessment rolls, they are entitled to the same legal guaranties as other personal property, though in actions for their death or injury the owner is limited in the amount of his recovery to the value fixed by himself in the last assessment. It is only under these restrictions that dogs are recognized as property. In addition to this, dogs are required by the municipal ordinance of New Orleans to be provided with a tag, obtained from the treasurer, for which the owner pays a license tax of two dollars. ”

“ The very fact that they are without the protection of the criminal laws shows that property in dogs is of an imperfect or qualified nature, and that they stand, as it were, between animals ferae naturae, in which, until killed or subdued, there is no property, and domestic animals, in which the right of property is perfect and complete. ”

“ Although dogs are ordinarily harmless, they preserve some of their hereditary wolfish instincts, which occasionally break forth in the destruction of sheep and other helpless animals. Others, too small to attack these animals, are simply vicious, noisy, and pestilent. As their depredations are often committed at night, it is usually impossible to identify the dog or to fix the liability upon the owner, who, moreover, is likely to be pecuniarily irresponsible. ”

“ While the higher breeds rank among the noblest representatives of the animal kingdom, and are justly esteemed for their intelligence, sagacity, fidelity, watchfulness, affection, and, above all, for their natural companionship with man, others are afflicted with such serious infirmities of temper as to be little better than a public nuisance. ”

“ Wakefield, 133 Mass. 240, the same statute was construed as authorizing any person to kill a dog which was licensed, but had no collar on, provided that he could do so without committing a trespass, although no warrant for the killing of dogs had been issued. The constitutional objection against general warrants, which was the occasion of so much controversy in that state in its colonial days, was held not to apply to dogs, and a warrant was sufficient which ordered the killing of all dogs, living in a town, not duly licensed and collared. ”

“ They are not considered as being upon the same plane with horses, cattle, sheep, and other domesticated animals, but rather in the category of cats, monkeys, parrots, singing birds, and similar animals, kept for pleasure, curiosity, or caprice. They have no intrinsic value, by which we understand a value common to all dogs as such, and independent of the particular breed or individual. ”

“ While these regulations are more than ordinarily stringent, and might be declared to be unconstitutional, if applied to domestic animals generally, there is nothing in them of which the owner of a dog has any legal right to complain. ”