SOUNDNESS AND UNSOUNDNESS. 498 



fendant, that one of the fore-legs had been ban- 

 daged, because it was weaker than the other, a ver- 

 dict was obtained by the plaintift*. (See Law 

 Magazine for October 1828.) It was held by Lord 

 Ellenborough in this case, that to constitute un- 

 soundness, it is not essential that the infirmity 

 should be of a permanent nature ; it is sufficient if 

 it render the animal for the time unfit for service. 

 Now, it is well known that amongst hunters and 

 racers, bandages on the legs are nearly as common 

 as head-collars on their heads, and that at least six 

 out of ten of the former are subject to temporary 

 lameness, perhaps two or three times in a season. 

 But this decision, says the writer in the Law 

 Magazine^ on the subject of warranty, appears to 

 contradict a prior one, in which Eyre, 0. J., held, 

 that a slight lameness, occasioned by the horse 

 having taken up a nail at the farrier's, was not an 

 unsoundness. This learned Judge, in his observa- 

 tions to the Jury, remarks, " A horse, labouring 

 under a temporary injury or hurt, which is capable 

 of being speedily cured or removed, is not for that 

 an unsound horse, within the meaning of the war- 

 ranty."' If these decisions are not to be regarded 

 as conflicting, one deduction ought possibly to be, 

 that such slight injuries as proceed from external 

 causes, and are, with moral certainty, to be speedily 

 and effectually cured, do not fall under the head of 

 infirmities^ which term properly comprehends such 

 diseases only as may, without much improbability, 

 hang by the animal through life, while they impair 

 his present usefulness. 



