States Supreme Court, with the following com ment : — July i, 1893. DEAR GRANDFATHER BROWNE, — I received and read with great pleasure your charming verses on the advent of a second grandchild; but I was pained to see in a late paragraph in the "Journal" a bit of unseemly boasting from your pen. I do not want to say anything in dispar agement of the condition of one having only two grand children. I have myself been through that chrysalis state of existence; but you should modestly remember that while once a grandfather a man is entitled to considera tion, and twice a grandfather to respect, yet it is only when he is three times a grandfather that he becomes an object of veneration. Come up from the hill-tops, where you live, to the mountain summits, where I dwell, sur rounded by the three finest babies ever born into this world, all shouting in the mystic language brought from the unseen shore, "dear grandfather I " and you will be gin to appreciate the real affluence of life. Have patience, my progressive friend, and you may yet know, though some months hence, how exalted a position he occupies who is three times a grandfather. Yours in bonds of grandparental dignity.
We entertain strong hopes, founded on experience and observation, that we shall attain that triple dig nity in a much shorter period than ¡t requires to reach a cause for argument in the learned gentle man's court. - Meantime our affections are broaden ing in watching the growth of our two grandbabies, and our wits are sharpening under the cross-exam ination of the elder, — son of a lawyer, grandson to two lawyers, and nephew of a fourth, — who asks more unanswerable questions than the amiable jus tice would be apt to propound. We are celebrat ing the great Columbian discovery in a domestic way. Let us sing to our elder brethren — none under fifty are expected to sympathize with us — of MY NEW WORLD. My prow is tending toward the west; Old voices growing faint, dear faces dim, And all that 1 have loved the best Far back upon the waste of memory swim. Mv old world disappears; Few hopes and many fears Accompany me. But from the distance fair A sound of birds, a glimpse of pleasant skies, A scent of fragrant air, All soothingly arise In cooing voice, sweet breath, and merry eyes Of grandson on my knee And ere my sails be furled, Kind Lord, I pray Thou let me live a day Tn my new world.
NOTES OF CASES.
A MALICIOUS FENCE.— It is held by the Michi gan Supreme Court, in Kirkwood 7'. Finegan, 55 N. W. Rep. 457, following Flaherty v. Moran, 81 Mich. 52, that an injunction will issue to restrain the erection of an unsightly fence, six to seven feet high, on the boundary between complainant's and defendant's lots, in the residence portion of a city, depreciating the value of complainant's property, and constructed maliciously as the outcome of a quarrel between the parties. We extract the following from the statement : — "This fence consists of posts set in the ground about seven feet apart, the whole distance between the lots of the parties hereto, and spiked to them are stringers on the top and towards the bottom. These posts were for merly railroad ties, and for a long time used for that pur pose, containing large spike holes, in some cases decayed by their former use. Defendant placed between these posts certain other railroad ties, with pieces of brick be tween them, and up as high as the terrace, leaving these old ties as support to the bank uncovered on complain ant's side, and began nailing on boards close together at the front of these lots, and within six or eight inches of the sidewalk, and had built back about forty-five feet north when she was restrained from going further. The boards were nailed to the fence on defendant's side, leav ing the fence posts and stringers uncovered on complain ant's side. The first twenty-one feet of this fence was built six feet four inches high, and the balance, as far as built, was seven feet eight inches high. The twenty-one feet mentioned extends back and opposite complainant's sitting-room window. The higher portion of the fence is opposite complainant's dining-room and kitchen windows. This fence not only cuts off complainant's view to the north, hut darkens his sitting-room, hall, and dining mom The boards with which this fence is built are old boards, and the cull boards seem to have been selected from them and used to build the front of the fence, — that portion which is immediately opposite complainant's sittingroom. "Defendant attempts to justify the building of this fence upon several grounds: (t) That she did it that she might live without being harassed and molested by com plainant's wife; (2) For the reason that the quarrelling of her children, and the chastisement of them by words of complainant's wife, tormented, harassed, and disturbed her to such an extent that the building of such fence is necessary; (3) That said fence is necessary to keep com plainant's wife from quarrelling with defendant's hus band, and because of unneighborly, malicious, and cruel treatment of defendant's family by complainant and his family."
It does not appear whether the structure was wholly on the defendant's land, but even if it is, we incline to regard the decision as sound, although we believe no other court in this country has gone so far. Such a fence is a malicious and useless nuisance.
