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v. Birmingham Waterworks Co. (11 Ex. 781); a case, not of 
unusually hot weather, but of unusually cold. An extraordinary 
frost, "which penetrated to a greater depth than any which 
ordinarily occurs south of the Polar regions," prevented the due 
action of a safety-plug in the main water-pipe under a street, 
and so caused the plaintiff's house to be flooded. But such a 
frost was a contingency so remote that no reasonable man would 

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have thought it necessary to provide against it. Alderson, B., 
(p. 784) well defined Negligence as being "The omission to do 
something which a reasonable man, guided by those considerations 
which ordinarily regulate the conduct of human affairs, would 
do; or the doing something which he would not do." 
In Williams v. Eady (9 T.L.R. 637, and 10 T.L.R. 41), Cave, J., 
thus illustrates the principle:- "Negligence is a question of 
degree. It would be negligence to leave a knife about, where a 
child of four could get at it; but not where only lads of 
eighteen would have access to it. Again, there are some 
dangerous things which it is necessary to leave about; whilst 
this would be negligence if they were not necessary". 
Accordingly the defendant, a school-master, who kept a bottle of 
phosphorus, (which he used for making hockey-balls luminous when 
played with at night), in the room where the pupils' cricketing 
things were kept, was held liable for injuries caused to one boy 
by another's having carried off the bottle to the play-ground, 
where it exploded. 
As was said by Lord Collins, "The standard of Reasonableness of 
Care must naturally vary according to the circumstances of the 
case, the trust reposed, and the skill and appliances at the 
disposal of the person to whom another confides a duty"; L.R. 
[1903] 2 K.B. at p. 226. Thus in felling a tree in a forest the 
same precautions are not necessary as in felling one that stands 
in the hedge adjoining a public road. Time and place and 

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surroundings must all be considered. 
Hence the standard of care to be required from a child is only 
such (if any) as may reasonably be expected at his particular 
age. Cf. p. 32 supra. 
A motorist may be guilty of Negligence in several ways; e.g. by 
excessive speed, by being on the wrong side of the road, by 
failure to sound his horn, by not keeping a proper look-out, or 
by being intoxicated.] 

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