44 ON WARRANTY, 



have ofteu been subsequently lost. The certificate of a vet- 

 erinary surgeon, as to the soundness of a horse, does not 

 prevent such horse from being returned, should he after- 

 wards manifest such symptoms as would prove him to be 

 unsound at the time of sale. Cases may occur in which dis- 

 ease may exist in a latent form, and which professional 

 vigilance may be unable to detect. But to one case of this 

 sort there arc hundreds in which the unsoundness would 

 have been detected by the veterinary surgeon, though not 

 by the owner or amateur. 



There are two grounds on which a horse can bo return- 

 ed and the value recovered : one, a breach of warranty ; 

 the other, the proving a fraud. If a horse is warranted 

 sound, free from vice, steady in harness, and five years 

 old, and ho proves either unsound, vicious, unsteady in 

 harness, or more or less than five years, the warranty is 

 broken, and the horse returnable. It is of little use tho 

 dealer saying that ho tvill warrant the horse, unless ho 

 actually does, and any professions that ho may make 

 amount to nothing ; thus, though he were to say, '' tho 

 horse was the soundest animal ever foaled," or, '^ the gen- 

 tlest creature that ever looked through a collar," or, the 

 usual term, ^' the finest in the world," it amounts to noth- 

 ing, unless he warrants tho ono or the other of his asser- 

 tions. A warranty before a witness is better than a 

 written warranty without a witness. 



A warranty does not extend to any limited time unless 

 specified accordingly, as at some of the auction marts. In 

 former days it used to be the law to allow a trial of so many 

 weeks for the eyes, and so many for the wind, &c., but 

 such is not the case at present. 



The other ground on which a horse can be returned — 

 that of fraud — is more difficult to xn'ove. If a person sells 



