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 in the circumstances by an “average reasonable man.” This objective standard excludes consideration of the capacity or state of mind of the particular individual. It also gets rid of the old distinctions between “gross,” “ordinary” and “slight” negligence, though no doubt the degree of care required varies with the circumstances of the case. The application of such a standard is a task for which a jury is a very appropriate tribunal. In fact the decision of the question whether there has been a want of due care is left almost unreservedly to the jury. There is this amount of control, that if the judge is of opinion that the evidence, if believed, cannot possibly be regarded as showing want of due care, or in technical language that there is “no evidence of negligence,” it is his duty to withdraw the case from the jury and give judgment for the defendant. Unless the judge decides that there is no duty to take care, or that there is no evidence of want of care, the question of negligence or no negligence is wholly for the jury.

Ordinarily a man is responsible only for his own negligence and for that of his servants and agents acting within the scope of their authority. For the acts or defaults of the servants of an independent contractor he is not liable. But in certain cases a stricter obligation is imposed on him by law. The occupier of premises is under a duty to all persons who go there on business which concerns him to see that the premises are in a reasonably safe condition so far as reasonable care and skill can make them so. Thus he cannot release himself by employing an independent contractor to maintain or repair the premises. The effect of this doctrine is that the occupier may be liable if it can be shown that the independent contractor or his servant has been guilty of a want of due care. A similar obligation has been enforced in the case of a wreck stranded in a navigable river, and the owner was held liable for damage caused by the carelessness of the servant of an independent contractor who had undertaken to light the wreck. So too any person who undertakes a work likely to cause danger if due care is not taken is liable for damage caused by the carelessness of the servant of an independent contractor, so long as the carelessness is not casual or collateral to the servant’s employment.

In an action of negligence a familiar defence is “contributory negligence.” This is a rather misleading expression. It is not a sufficient defence to show that the plaintiff was negligent, and that his negligence contributed to the harm complained of. The plaintiff’s negligence will not disentitle him to recover unless it is such that without it the misfortune would not have happened, nor if the defendant might by the exercise of reasonable care on his part have avoided the consequences of the plaintiff’s negligence. The shortest and plainest way of expressing this rule is, that the plaintiff’s negligence is no defence unless it was the proximate or decisive cause of the injury. There was an attempt in recent times to extend this doctrine so as to make the contributory negligence of a third person a defence, in cases where the plaintiff, though not negligent himself, was travelling in a vehicle or vessel managed by the negligent third person, or was otherwise under his control. In such circumstances it was said that the plaintiff was “identified” with the third person. (Waite v. North-Eastern Ry. Co., 1858, E. B. & E., 719). This case, in the Exchequer Chamber, was an action on behalf of an infant by his next friend. The infant, which was five years of age, was with its grandmother, who took a half-ticket for the child and a ticket for herself to travel by the defendants’ line; as they were crossing the railway to be ready for the train the child was injured by a passing train. The jury found that the defendants were guilty of negligence, and that the grandmother was guilty of negligence which contributed to the accident, while there was no negligence of the infant plaintiff. A verdict was entered for the plaintiff, but in the Queen’s Bench the verdict was entered for the defendants, without calling on them to argue, on the ground that the infant was identified with its grandmother. But the case of the “Bernina,” decided in 1888, where a passenger and an engineer on board the “Bushire” were killed in a collision between the “Bernina” and the “Bushire” caused by fault in both ships,

but without fault on the part of the deceased, exploded this supposed doctrine, and made it clear that the defence of contributory negligence holds good only when the defendant contends and proves that the plaintiff was injured by his own carelessness.

The American law of negligence is founded on the English common law; but the decisions in different states have occasionally contradicted English decisions, and also one another.

 NEGOTIABLE INSTRUMENT, in law, a document or other instrument purporting to represent so much money, and the property in which passes, like money, by mere delivery. Negotiable instruments arise in either of two ways: (1) by statute, (2) by custom of merchants. The most commonly recognized negotiable instruments are bills of exchange, promissory notes, bills of lading, foreign bonds and debentures payable to bearer. Negotiable instruments constitute an exception to the general rule that a man cannot give a better title than he has himself (see ).  NEGRI, ADA (1870–), Italian poet, was born at Lodi, of an artisan family, and became a village school-teacher. Her first book of poems, Tempeste (1891), tells the helpless tragedy of the forsaken poor, in words of vehement beauty. Her second volume of lyrics, Fatalità (1893), confirmed her reputation as a poet, and led to her appointment to the normal school at Milan; but her later verse, while striking in its sincerity, suffered by a tendency to repetition and consequent mannerism.  NEGRITOS (Span. for “little negroes”), the name originally given by the Spaniards to the aborigines of the Philippine Islands. They are physical weaklings, of low, almost dwarf, stature, with very dark skin, closely curling hair, flat noses, thick lips and large clumsy feet. The term has, however, been more generally applied to one of the great ethnic groups into which the population of the East Indies is divided, and to an apparently kindred race in Africa (see ). A. de Quatrefages suggests that from the parent negroid stem were thrown off two negrito branches to the west and east, the Indo-Oceanic and African, and that the Akkas, Wochuas, Batwas and Bushmen of the Dark Continent are kinsmen of the Andaman Islanders, the Sakais of the Malay Peninsula and the Aetas of the Philippines. This view has found much acceptance among ethnologists. The result of Quatrefages’s theory would be to place the negrito races closest to the primitive human type, a conclusion apparently justified by their physical characteristics. The true negritos are always of little stature (the majority under 5 ft.), have rounded forms and their skull is brachycephalic or subbrachycephalic, that is to say, it is relatively short and broad and of little height. Their skin is dark brown or black, sometimes somewhat yellowish, their hair woolly (scanty on face and body), and they have the flat nose and thick lips and other physical features of the negro. Among peoples undoubtedly negrito are those of the (q.v.), the (q.v.) and some of the (q.v.), the best types being the s (q.v.), Mincopies and Aetas. The question of the so-called negrito races of India, the Oraons, Gonds, &c., is in much dispute, Quatrefages believing the Indian aborigines to have been negritos, while other ethnologists find the primitive people of Hindustan in the Dravidian races. Some authorities have placed the Veddahs of Ceylon among the negritos, but their straight hair and dolichocephalic skulls are sufficient arguments against their inclusion. The negrito is often confounded with the Papuan; but the latter, though possessing the same woolly hair and being of the same colour, is a large, often muscular man, with a long, high skull.

