wssssumx a moan MANUEUG 00. v. emnNzLL wma co. 27
Schone, a blacksmith in Brooklyn, in this state, prior to the war,
having a window in his shop near which horses were fastened, and "
Ending they broke the glass, first put a link of smooth wire, as he `
says, across the window to prevent the breaking of the glass; others
say it was a rod of iron, and not a piece of wire. At any rate, he
put something across there to keep the horses from breaking the
glass. Finding that not sufficient, he took some horseshoe nails,
sharpened the blunt end, and twisted them around the wire or rod.
Finding that those horseshoe nails thus twisted around were not sta-
tionary, he wrapped a little piece of wire around to hold them in posi-
tion. Succeeding with the experiment, as he says,—his blacksmith
shop being at one corner of the lot and his house at the other,-he
found the boys going over the fence between, and in order to prevent
that, as well as to prevent horses from gnawing at the upper board,
he put wire on that board, and that wire he protected in the same way
with prickers or barbs of horseshoe nails. He did the same thing on
the alley side of his lot, between his shop and stable, and also on the
street side south or back of his house, where there was a little swale in
the ground. As I read his testimony in regard to the form of the wire,
and examined the model which he presented, it did present a form of
fence wire which certainly would raise close attention as being very
like the Glidden wire, and combining substantially all its elements.
This was in 1858. Besides this, defendants introduced several wit-
nesses who testified to seeing the wires upon which were barbs or
prickers, and mentioning the times and the circumstances under which “
they were at this blacksmitlfs shop; and, while not so distinct as to
the form of thebarbs, yet, so far as their recollections went, it was
in the line of supporting his testimony. As against that, complain-
ants introduced the testimony of quite a number of witnesses, among
others, Mr. and Mrs. Suits, who were in the habit of going into Mr.
Schone’s premises for the purpose of drawing water from his well,
and, so far as Mrs. Suits is concerned, she frequently riding on horse-
back up the alley where he claimed to have one of these strips of
fence wire; the carpenter who tore down, three or four years after,
this entire fence, and replaced it with a picket fence; several persons
who lived back of Schone’s premises and frequently passed, going to
and fro, from their places of business to their homes, and all of whom
testified that there were no barbed wires of any kind on his fences.
Complainants also introduced some witnesses who were in the habit
of going to his shop for the purpose of having their horses shod, and
who testified that there was simply a bar of plain iron across the
windows, and that along the fence between his shop and house, upon
which he claims to have put barbed wire as a protection against boys .
and horses, there was a heap of rubbish scattered, which would pre-
vent horses from being fastened to the fence, and that there were
posts outside of this rubbish to which horses were hitched. New this _
is the range of the testimony on both sides. It is true that the tes-