182 :VIEANING OF A THOUSAND EABBITS. 



And where tlie defeudant., as in Sinilli v. WiIso?i, demised a rabbit 

 warren to the phiintitrs, and covenanted that they shonld leave 10,000 

 rabbits on the luarren at the expiration of the term, and receive payment 

 for those and any more than that nnmber at thc'ratc of £60 jfei- thou- 

 sand, the question arose as to whether by the Suffolk custom the word 

 "thousand" meant 1200 as applied to rabbits. Two indifferent per- 

 sons estimated the rabbits at 1600 dozen, and hence the defendant 

 paid. into Court a sufficient sum to pay for 16,000 rabbits, and con- 

 tended that thousand meant one hundred dozen, while the plaintiffs 

 contended that he ought to pay for 19,200. Under the direction of 

 Garroiv B. the jury found for the defendant, and the Court of King's 

 Bench refused a new triah Lord Tenferden C. J. said, "There is no 

 act of parliament which says 1000 rabbits shall denote ten hundred, 

 each hundred consisting of five score ; and that being so, we must 

 suppose the term tlmisand to have been used by the parties in the sense 

 in ^\■hich it is usually understood in the place where the contract was 

 made, when applied to the subject of rabbits ; and parol evidence was 

 admissible to show what that sense was." 



Mere words of description in a deed of conveyance not operatincj by way 

 of estojypel, may be contradicted by parol ; thus the lessee of land de- 

 scribed as " meadow," may prove it to have been arable in an action 

 by the lessor for ploughing it up {Shrpwith v. Green) ; or he may^show 

 that land described as containing 500 acres does not in fact contain so 

 many {S. C. as reported Bac. Ab. Pleas I., 11) ; or contains many more 

 {Jaclc V. Mclntyre). Pasiura bosci may be explained, by usage and 

 later admittances, to mean the soil and wood itself {Doe v. Beviss). 



A deed takes effect from the delivery, and not from the date ; therefore 

 parol evidence was allowed to show that a lease dated on Lady Day 

 1783, and purporting to commence on Lady Day last past, was in fact 

 executed after the date, and that the term therefore commenced on 

 Lady Day 1783, and not 1782 {Steele v. Mart). But where it was 

 agreed in wTiting that A., for certain considerations, should have the 

 produce of Boreham meadoiv, it was held that he could not prove that 

 it was at the same time agreed by parol that he should have both Mil- 

 croft and Boreham meadow {Meres v. Ansell). And see Hojje v. 

 Atkins. 



According to Lorymer v. Smith, a refused to show in bulk justifies a 

 imrchaser in rescindiny a sale, even cfter boucjht ami sold notes have been 

 exchanyed. The contract here made was for 1400 and 700 bushels of 

 wheat, at 9s. (jd., on Sept. 11th, "bankers' bill if required"; and on 

 Sept. 19th, according to the usage of the place, the plaintiff went to 

 the defendant's warehouse to inspect it in bulk, in order to see if it 



