the various kinds of articles thus undersold are driven out of business» rrnny of them at a time of life when they are unable to rein state themselves in some other calling. It also results in great damage to manufactur ers, producers, and wholesale dealers in loss of customers who have been driven into insolvency. It is, of course, true that the proprietors of department stores have the legal right to offer to the public goods of any kind at prices below production, or, in deed, may donate them to their customers. It is, however, equally true that the manufac turers, producers, and wholesale dealers may say, to the men whose policy is thus carrying ruin and destruction to their business and that of their customers, that if you persist in this disastrous cutting of rates we will sever all business relations absolutely. These are mutual and inherent rights, in the nature of things, so long as self-defense and the privi lege to exist survive among men." NEGLIGENCE. (INJURIES RESULTING FROM BLAST ING.) NEW YORK SUPREME COURT, APPEL LATE DIVISION, FIRST DEPARTMENT.
In the case of Wheeler v. Norton, 86 New York Supplement, 1095, the question was raised as to the liability of the defendant, who was blasting for the new subway, for damages which resulted from the breaking of a water pipe and the subsequent overflowing of the property of the plaintiff. While the particular facts in this case are novel, there are many authorities in New York which hold that the throwing of rocks and other matter upon a person's property, causing him damage, makes one liable as a tres passer, and this irrespective of whether such person be guilty of negligence or not. The court cites the leading case of Hay v. Cohoes, 2 N. Y. 159, 51 Am. Dec. 279, in which the defendant was held liable for damages which resulted trom fragments of rock which were thrown against the plaintiff's house while the defendant was blasting upon his own land. In this case there was no proof of negligence. The Hay case has been cited with approval in the cases of St. Peter v.
Dennison, 58 X. Y. 416, Mairs v. Manhattan Real Estate Ass'n., 89 N. Y. 498. and re cently in the case of Sullivan v. Dunham, 55 N. E. 923, 160 N. Y. 290. The court holds in the present instance that the break ing of the pipe was the direct and proximate cause of the injury to the plaintiff. If a sec tion of the pipe had been thrown upon her premises, there would be no doubt, under the authorities cited, that the defendants would be liable as trespassers, and there seems to be no reason why a distinction should be made between iron thrown upon the prop erty and water flow-ing thereon. The judg ment of the tria! court allowing a recovery is affirmed. PHOTOGRAPH. (ADMISSIBILITY IN EVIDENCEACTION FOR DEATH OF THE W IKE.) NEW YORK COURT OF APPEALS-
In Smith v. Lehigh Valley Railroad Com pany, 69 Northeastern Reporter 729, the plaintiff sued for negligently causing the death of his wife and introduced her photo graph, which showed her to have been a handsome woman. The New York Court of Appeals, speaking by Chief Justice Parker, holds that this was error. It says that into such a case the personal element does not enter; for the law does not com pensate for grief or sorrow, but only for pe cuniary loss. The introduction of the photo graph could not be expected to accomplish any other result than to introduce the per sonal element for the consideration of the jury, awaken their sympathies and thus se cure a larger verdict. Whether in thus championing the rights of the small number of plain looking women in the United States the judge had in view securing the support of the women suffragists in his presidential candidacy, would doubtless be an invidious inquiry; and in view of the fact that all husbands know their wives to be beautiful, the practical prudence of such a course is so questionable that the astute jurist ought not to be lightly accused of it. Lipp v. Otis Bros. & Co., 161 N. Y. 559, 564, 56 Northeastern Reporter 79, is relied on as authoritv.
