392 WARRANTY AND SOUNDNESS. 



deceptive practices 1 have occasionally hinted at, but have no 

 doubt that there are also to be found among them men of 

 integrity and honour. 



I cannot conclude this subject without advising those who are 

 satisfied with a moderate degree of goodness in a horse to ])ut 

 up Avith a few trifling faults, as it often happens that the rider 

 is as much in fault as the horse ; and after a little use these 

 trivial faults often disappear. 



[There is no money better expended, when purchasing a 

 valuable horse, than the payment of the ten-shilling fee to a 

 respectable veterinary surgeon, one whose pj^ofessiojial know- 

 ledt/e enables him to form, and whose rejnitation induces him to 

 give, a correct and honest opinion as to the soundness of a 

 horse. Through saving this trifling sum hundreds of pounds 

 have often been subsequently lost. The certificate of a veteri- 

 nary surgeon as to the soundness of a horse does not prevent 

 such horse from being returned .should he afterwards manifest 

 such symptoms as would prove him to be unsound at the time 

 of sale. Cases may occur in which disease may exist in a latent 

 form, and which professional vigilance may be unable to detect. 

 But to one case of this sort there are hundreds in which the 

 unsoundness would have been detected by the veterinary sur- 

 geon, though not by the owner or amateur. There are two 

 grounds on which a horse can be retmned, and the value re- 

 covered ; — one a breach of warranty, the other on proving a 

 fraud. If a horse is warranted sound, fi'ee from vice, steady 

 in harness, and five years old, and he proves either unsound, 

 vicious, unsteady in harness, or more or less than five years, the 

 warranty is broken, and the hoi'se is returnable. The warranty 

 must either be written or be given before a witness, and must 

 be at or after the time of sale, and not before it. It is of little 

 use the dealer saying that he vhU warrant the horse unless he 

 actually does, and any professions that he may make amount to 

 nothing; thus though he were to say the horse was the soundest 

 animal ever foaled, or the gentlest creature that ever looked 

 throuo'h a collar, it amounts to nothino; iniless he warrants the 

 one or the other. A warranty before a witness is better than 

 a written warranty without a Avitness; but it is not essential 

 that the latter should be written on a stamp provided the re- 

 ceipt for the money is so. 



A warranty does not extend to any limited time unless speci- 

 fied accordingly, as at some of the great 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 prove. If a person sells to another a 

 glandered horse at such a price as the animal would have been 



