band was driving over this gangway in a closed buggy, his horse was frightened by the noise made by one of the defendant's servants going down the gangway with a truck, and ran away, overturning the buggy and inflicting injuries on him from which he afterwards died. It was contended that a> the death was caused through the negligence of the servant, with the truck, defendant was not liable, no matter if it had been guilty of negligence in constructing the gangway across the street. But the court says that defendant violated the law in building the gangway across the street, and the accident would never have occurred but for that un lawful act. The act of moving the truckrapidly clown the gangway, producing the noise that frightened the horse, was insepar ably connected with the unlawful structure. Without the gangway the accident was im possible. Tt required the gangway as well as the moving of the truck to produce the result. The intervening act of the servant in rolling the truck immediately behind the buggy and frightening the horse did not supersede the original unlawful act in putting the obstruction in the street. If the gang way had not been on the street, the servant could not have run the truck at such rate of speed as to create sufficient noise to alarm the horse. The two causes were so closely enjoined that the one could not exist without the other, and when the negligence of the defendant concurred with the negligence of the servant, it became as liable as though its negligence had been the sole moving cause of the disaster. PUBLIC SCHOOLS. (BIBLE READI.NC, — RELIGIOUS EXERCISES.) SUPREME COURT OF KANSAS.
The question as to whether the reading of the Bible in the public schools is a violation of the clause in the Federal Constitution guaranteeing religious liberty has been tested in several of the States during the past few years, and was again brought up in Billiard v. Board of Education, 76 Pacific Reporter 422. Here it was alleged that the reading of the Lord's Prayer and the repeat
ing of the Twenty-third Psalm by the teacher was a violation of Section 7 of the Bill of Rights, guaranteeing to every person the right to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience, and also of Section 8, article 6 of the Constitution, which provides that no religious sect or sects shall ever control any part of the common school or university funds of the State. It is further alleged that the General Statutes of 1901 are violated, which prescribe that no sectarian or religious doctrine shall be taught or incul cated in any of the public schools of the city. The teacher testified that the general open ing exercises of the school consisted of re peating the Lord's Prayer, the Twenty-Third Psalm, and reading selections from natural history, and occasionally singing a selection found in the music book. It seems that none of the pupils -were required to take part in these exercises, but they were re quired to refrain from their regular studies and preserve order during such time. The plaintiff's son protested that he was conscien tiously opposed to these exercises, because they were a form of religious worship. Upon his refusal to maintain order during this period, he was excused from attending' the exercises, but later persisted in attending the exercises and disobeying the rules. He was afterward expelled, and the board of education, in upholding this action on the part of the principal of the school resolved that the pupil should not be reinstated until he expressed a willingness to comply with the rules. Mandamus was then brought to compel the reinstatement of the plaintiff's son. The court holds that while the statutes which the plaintiff depended upon clearly prohibit all forms of religious worship, the facts in the case did not show that they had been violated in this instance. The reading of the Bible is not prohibited, and the court adds that every pupil who enters the public school has a right to expect and the public has a right to demand of the teacher that such pupil shall come out with a more acute sense of right and wrong, higher ideals of life, a more independent and moral charac ter, a higher and truer moral sense of his
