entitled to a
decision in your favor; but when you consider how apt a sober human
mind is to think that an intoxicated mind is incapable of clear
thought and intelligent action, I think you will agree with the
decisions of the courts, which mean, when expressed in plain
language, "You had better not be drunk when you get into trouble on
the highway."[97]

[97] 3 Allen, 402; 115 Mass. 239.

Don't ever approach a railway crossing without looking out for the
engine while the bell rings, and listening to see if the train is
coming; for there is good sense as well as good law in the suggestion
of Chief Baron Pollock, that a railway track _per se_ is a warning of
danger to those about to go upon it, and cautions them to see if a
train is coming. And our court has decided that when one approaches a
railway crossing he is bound to keep his eyes open, and to look up and
down the rails before going upon them, without waiting for the engineer
to ring the bell or to blow the whistle.[98] It is a duty dictated by
common sense and prudence, for one approaching a railway crossing to do
so carefully and cautiously both for his own sake and the sake of those
travelling by rail. If one blindly and wilfully goes upon a railway
track when danger is imminent and obvious, and sustains damage, he must
bear the consequences of his own rashness and folly.

[98] 12 Met. 415.

Don't drive horses or other animals affected by contagious diseases
on the public way, or allow them to drink at public watering-places,
or keep them at home, for that matter. The common law allows a man
to keep on his own premises horses afflicted with glanders, or sheep
afflicted with foot-rot, or other domestic animals afflicted with
any kind of diseases, provided he guards them with diligence and
does not permit them to escape on to his neighbor's land or the
public way. But under the statute law of this State, a man having
knowledge of the existence of a contagious disease among any species
of domestic animals is liable to a fine of five hundred dollars, or
imprisonment for one year, if he does not forthwith inform the
public authorities of such disease.[99] Aside from the penalty of the
statute law, it is clearly an indictable offence for any one to take
domestic animals affected with contagious diseases, knowing or
having reason to know them to be so affected, upon the public ways,
where they are likely to give such diseases to sound animals; and he