Manawatu Herald. TUESDAY, NOV. 22, 1892. The Brands Act.

Manawatu Herald, 22 November 1892, Page 2

Manawatu Herald. TUESDAY, NOV. 22, 1892. The Brands Act.

" The mark or impression of any registered brand upon any stock shall be prlma facie evidence of the ownership of the said stock by the person in whose name such brand shall be registered in the register of the district." Such is the wording of section 14 of " The Brands Act 1880 " and the framers imagined that they had successfully put the identification of any stock beyond dispute. It has not appeared so to us, as the fact of thers being districts, made almost certain duplication of any brand within any area through which any boundary of any j registration district passed, and thus at once destroyed the proof of ownership at once. A case, bearing upon this view was before Mr Kettle, R.M., at Hawera, at the beginning of the month, in which the plaintiff saw a beast in a sale yard, in the possession of defendant bearing his brand a X, and he claimed ic's value, the beast having died. He had not parted with possession of the beast. The plaintiff rested his case simply on the brand. The defendant disputed that it wag the plaintiff's brand. The Star thus reports the decision of the R.M., from which it will be noticed how simply other cattle, having similar brands, get into a distriot, and of how little use the section of the Act, which we have quoted, is, and will be, until the districts are very much altered. Altogether the case and the judgment is of much interest to stock* owners. In delivering judgment, the R.M. said : In this case the question to be determined is one of fact, viz., whether the bullock which was in the possession ot defendant when this case was brought, but which has since died or been killed, was the property of the plaintiff The plaintiff now claims to recover its value from the defendant. The onus of proof rests on the plaintiff, who has to satisfy me beyond any reasonable doubt that the bullock was his. The case for the plaintiff is this: He says he has from time to time lost cattle, and that when he saw this animal in the saleyarda with a brand (K) similar to his, he claimed it as one of his lost beasts, and he has stated in his evidence that the only way ho can identify it is by the brand and ear-mark (a hole in the centre of the ear). The plaintiffs brand is a plain K on the rump aud a round hole in the ear. The animal in dispute had a K brand on the rump, a round hole in the ear, and a piece of the ear cut out in a semi-circular form. The brand on the bullock is much longer and narrower than the plaintiff's iron brand, but it has been attempted to account for this by showing that the brand on a beast always grows or spreads as the animal increases in size. For the defence, a number of witnesses, experts, were called, and they all, with one exception, say that in their opinion the brand on the bullock in dispute was not made by the iron brand used by the plaintiff, but that the brand is more like that which would be made by the iron brand which was produced

belonging fco Mr Kelly, near Lepperton ; Mr Kelly's brand being a plain X, and his earmark being a hole in the ear, and a semi circular niece cut out as before describe-l. I nave Oiur-f ally compared the iron brands With the brand on the skin, and I ieel compelled to agree with the witnesses who say that the brand is ! more like Mr Kelly's^ The semtj circular piece cut out of the ear, in | addition to the hole in the ear-, also-, in my opinion, confirms the view that the bea.sfc Was once Mr Kelly's-. If 1 had been satisfied that the brand on the animal was made with the plaintiff's brand-, then no doubt the plaintiff's would by virtue of the Branding Act, 1880 (section 14), which makes the brand prima facie evidence of ownership, have been entitled to recover unless the defendant could have shown that he had a good title to the animal. There was also evidence that cattle come to this district from Auckland branded with a K brand. The plaintiff has not satisfied me that the brand on, the bullock in dispute was his, and \\o must therefore be nonsuited with costs.