Fences

Barbed Wire

Barbed Wire, a protective variety of fencing, consisting usually of several strands of wire twisted together with sharp spikes or points clinched or fastened into the strands.

In some American states, the use of barbed wire is regulated by law, but as a rule these laws apply to placing barbed wire on highways. Others prohibit the use of barbed wire fencing to indicate the property line between different owners, unless both agree to its use. In some states the use of barbed wire is prohibited unless it has a top rail of lumber.

Barbed wire is also employed in connexion with “obstacles” in field fortifications, especially in what are known as “high wire entanglements.” Pointed stakes or “pickets,” 4 ft. high, are planted in rows and secured by ordinary wire to holdfasts or pegs in the ground. Each picket is connected to all around it, top and bottom, by lengths of barbed wire.

In England, where the use of barbed wire has also become common, the Barbed Wire Act 1893 enacted that, where there is on any land adjoining a highway within the county or district of a local authority, a fence which is made with barbed wire (i.e. any wire with spikes or jagged projections), or in which barbed wire has been placed, and where such barbed wire may probably be injurious to persons or animals lawfully using the highway, the local authority may require the occupier of the land to abate the nuisance by serving notice in writing upon him. If the occupier fails to do so within the specified time, the local authority may apply to a court of summary jurisdiction, and such court, if satisfied that the barbed wire is a nuisance, may by summary order direct the occupier to abate it, and on his failure to comply with the order within a reasonable time, the local authority may execute it and recover in a summary manner from the occupier the expenses incurred.

Source: Encyclopedia Britannica (1911)

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