FOR PEACE AND WAR, 95 



warrantry, have been, in themselves, rendered as pro- 

 tective to the purchaser as we believe it is possible for 

 Avords to make them. But the difficulty and uncertainty 

 in appealing to these laws lies in the difficulty and 

 uncertainty of proof, and which may be thus accounted 

 for. In the first place, no evidence is so vague and con- 

 tradictory as that in horse causes, and even when given by 

 perfectly disinterested persons, merely such as are called 

 upon professionally ; secondly, from their almost general 

 ignorance of the economy of the horse, either in theory or 

 practice, both judges and jury often labour under very 

 great disadvantages in their endeavours to get at the truth. 

 Moreover, what says the warranter of a horse — and it is 

 upon warrantry alone that an action of trover can be brought? 

 Why, he first warrants him sound, perhaps free from vice, 

 sometimes quiet to drive in harness, and now and then a 

 good hunter. Now, there is no such equivocal Avord in the 

 English language as the wOrd "sound;" it can only be 

 properly used with reference to an original idea or object, 

 and is, therefore, purely an analogical word. As to its 

 significations, they are too numerous to mention here, nor 

 is its derivation perfectly satisfactory. 



" Then, a warranty of ' free from vice,' is one of a ticklish 

 nature. It might be very difficult to prove any real act of 

 ' vice ' in a horse while in possession of the seller ; and, in 

 the next, a horse from being ill-treated or alarmed, may 

 become vicious in a week ; never having been so before. 

 Equally objectionable is the warranty of 'quiet in harness,' 

 or ' a good hunter.' The horse warranted as the former 

 may be very quiet on the day he was sold, but in a week 

 afterwards, from some mismanagement in the driver, from 

 sudden alarm, or from some of the harness pinching him, 

 he may become a kicker or a runaway. The hunter also 

 may be good for one man, and not worth a shilling to 



