550 BIDDING BY " PUFFERS " AT AUCTIONS. 



described, and the plaintiff was told this before he had taken the horse 

 away by a groom who had had charge of the horse. Tiie plaintiff never- 

 theless took the horse away. On the road to the plaintiff's premises, 

 and while under the charge of plaintiff's servant, the horse took fright, 

 ran away, and was injured. The plaintiff thereupon returned the horse 

 as not answering the description before the Wednesday evening, and 

 brought an action to recover the value given. The jury found that the 

 plaintiff was induced to buy the horse by the warranty, and that the 

 injury sustained by the horse was not in any way caused by the 

 negligence of the plaintiff's servant, and a verdict was entered for 

 the plaintiff for the value of the horse. This verdict was upheld by 

 the Court of Exchequer. . 



A bidder at a sale hy auction, under the usual conditions that the highest 

 bidder shall be the purchaser, may retract his bidding before the hammer 

 falls, as until then his offer is not assented to by the auctioneer as the 

 agent of the vendor {Payne v. Cave). "Where a sale is on these condi- 

 tions, and a horse is bid iq) by a puffer (here a servant of the owner, 

 who bid the horse up to 23 guineas after a bond fide bidder had bid 12 

 guineas), it was settled in Crowdcr v. Austin that the vendor has not an 

 action for the price against the last bidder, to whom it was knocked 

 down for 29 guineas. Best C.J. said that " such puffing was a gross 

 fraud, and that a seller had a right to have one person to bid for him at 

 a sale, but must declare it in the conditions. Here defendant was 

 entitled to have the horse at the next bidding to that of the only fair 

 bidder." A rule nisi to set aside the nonsuit was discharged without 

 argument, ParTce J. observing that " the opinion of Lord Mansfield in 

 Bexicell v. Christie is not a mere dictum, but a long elaborate judgment ; 

 and he was followed by Lord Kenyon C.J. in a case of Blachford v. 

 Preston ; and in Howard v. Castle. And it is now fully settled that 

 the vendor may employ one person to prevent a sale at an uncier-value, 

 provided it be not stated in the particulars or advertisements that the 

 sale is " ivithout reserve.'' But the employment of a single puffer when 

 the sale is '-without reserve" will avoid it at law {Thornett v. 

 Haines). 



The conditions of sale by auction printed, and posted up under tJie 

 auctio7ieer's box, in a Repository, coupled with his declaration that the 

 conditions are as usual, constitute, according to Mesnard v. Aldridge, a 

 sufficient notice of them to purchasers. In that case, where a horse 

 was bought on Wednesday with a warranty of soundness, and one con- 

 dition was that all horses purchased there, in case of any unsoundness 

 being discovered, should l^e returned before the evening of the second 

 day after the sale, the return of a horse on Saturday was decided to be 



