STRAYING PIGS.

Shannon News, 13 September 1927, Page 3

STRAYING PIGS.

COUNCIL AFFIRMS RIGHT OP DESTRUCTION. Extensive particulars of a neighbours ’ dispute were given in a letter received by the County Council on Saturday from Messrs Oakley and Oakley, of Ihakara, who asked the Council to pass a resolution annulling the operation in the county of sub-sections 2 to 4 of section 14 of the Impounding Act, 1908. The circumstances as explained by the applicants were that their farm adjoined one owned by Mr Burns. During the winter they grazed a number of pigs in a gully that ran to the boundary line. They took precautions to fence -the pigs in with pig-netting and they were closely watched over a period of three months. On two occasions some of them got into Burns’s place by rooting under the netting. Burns the owners notice, after the first trespass, that any pigs straying after that time would be shot. Some time afterwards three pigs got out, and were shot by Burns. After the trespass the owners had the turf turned back where the pigs had rooted, and they sowed grass-seed, so that the damage was repaired. They had since placed barbed wire along the ground under thS pignetting, to prevent the pigs rooting their way out. The applicants contended that they had not given justification to Burns for his action. A bull and a horse belonging to him trespassed on their property and were there for a considerable time before he removed them, and they did not even ask him to remove them. The writers enumerated various services rendered by them to Burns. They pointed out that power was given to the Council to pass a resolution by a two-thirds majority rendering inoperative the right of property-ownerd to shoot straying pigs. The chairman asked the Council if it was- their desire to pass the resolution asked for; and the reply being in the negative, the Council proceeded to the next business.