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in requiring, that contracts should be reduced to 

 writing, to give them vaUdity. To return from this 

 digression on the subject of evidence, it may 

 be inferred from all these cases, that the gist of 

 the action of deceit is a wilful misrepresentation, 

 whereby the purchaser is put off his guard, and 

 induced to make a contract into which he would 

 never have entered with his eyes open ; but it 

 must not be inferred that he is at liberty to release 

 himself from a contract on the mere plea that his 

 eyes were not open ; they must have been shut by 

 the seller, and not closed by natural infirmity. 

 Every man who goes into the market to buy an 

 article is presumably cognizant of the nature of 

 the article which he w^ants, as much so as the seller 

 is presumed to understand the article that he sells; 

 he cannot afterwards plead his own ignorance as 

 an excuse for repudiating the contract. Hence, if 

 a man enters the bazaar, or the manufactory, to buy 

 a carriage with mail boxes, and purchases one in 

 which the nave hoop is closed up with an iron 

 plate, as is the case with boxes of that description, 

 he cannot return the carriage because he afterwards 

 discovers that the axle is of the ordinary construc- 

 tion, unless he was expressly told the contrary. 

 So again, if his object is to purchase a new carriage, 

 and he finds that he has bought one recently painted 



