10 ON SOUNDNESS. 



The number of 'horse cases,' as they are commonly 

 called, that have engaged the attention of our courts of law, 

 have brought eminent persons of the legal profession to 

 our aid in the solution of this intricate question. Lord 

 Mansfield, years ago, made an attempt to settle the point 

 according to an ad valorem scale ; setting every horse down 

 as sound in the eye of the law, whose value or cost amount- 

 ed to a certain sum. This, of course, was law that never 

 could hold in horse transactions. 



Lord Ellenborough legislated with a great deal more 

 knowledge of horse-flesh. 



The law he laid down was, that an^ infirmity which 

 rendered a horse less fit for present use or convenience, 

 constituted unsoundness — a law which, though it admitted 

 of great latitude of construction, and to some special 

 cases did not prove applicable at all, was still a whole- 

 some and practicable one in a majority of cases of dispute. 



Lord Tenterden made but little improvement on it, when 

 he pronounced every horse unsound that could not go 

 through the same labor as before the existence of the de- 

 fect or blemish in dispute, and with the same degrees of 

 facility. 



Professor Coleman's notion was that every horse ought 

 to be considered sound that could perform the ordinary 

 duties of an ordinary horse. This definition is open to the 

 same objections as the judicial laws of Lords Mansfield and 

 Tenterden. Mange, diseases of the eye (so long as they 

 are confined to one eye,) nay, glanders, and farcy even, in 

 certain stages, and some other diseases, do not incapacitate 

 a horse, and yet they all amount to palpable unsoundness. 

 On the other hand, many a horse, from age or want of con- 

 dition, or from possessing a constitution naturally weak or 

 washy, is unfitted for what might be considered the ordi- 



