, 2 TIORSE WARRANTV'. 



supposing it had not sucli a dofoct ; and ho insists 

 upon adding to tho -warranty that the horse was 

 sound those words, " at this time." To persons 

 conversant ^^'ith horse cases, it is not too much to 

 say his meaning was, " tlie animal is sound now, 

 but if you train it, I will not ho answerable. 

 However, a jury found twice against such a con- 

 struction of the meaning of tho warranty, and tho 

 second time the Court refused to disturb the ver- 

 dict. It is just possible that the defendant knew 

 how and when a horse woidd train, and the plain- 

 tiff, a solicitor, how and when to bring his action ; 

 but it seems absurd to say that because a horso 

 in training — and, therefore, almost necessarily a 

 young horso — goes lame, he had tho seeds of un- 

 soundness in liini six months before. Such a 

 statement may or may not be true, but it could 

 not be proved. But this is tiiio, that every young 

 horso has more or less structiu'al altoratiuu oveiy 

 six months of its life until it attain its fifth or 

 sixth year, and in no place is this structural altora- 

 Percivai tion morc marked than in tho splint bones. That 

 ou . i< 111 . ^.,^j.^,f^j obsorvor, ^Ir. Porcival, in his lectures on 

 the horse (p. (JO), says, after speaking of tho elastic 

 power of the sjtlint bones : *' Lo the operation and 

 uso of those elastio powers what it may, few horses 

 retain thorn after tho adult period ; the ligamen- 

 tous elastic material booom(>s converted into osseous 

 inela.stic substance, and IhiLS the three bones '' — 

 that is, the cannon and two splint bones — " are, 



