580 SALE ON CREDIT. 



of charge. At the end of that time, plaintiffs' servant, by direction of 

 the defendant, took the horse to grass in Kimpton Park, and entered it 

 (simply because the defendant wished to conceal from his friends the 

 fact of his having a race-horse) as one of the plaintiflFs'. Eventually 

 defendant refused to take the horse, and under Abbott C.J.'s direction a 

 verdict was found for the plaintiffs ; and the Court of King's Bench 

 made the rule absolute for a nonsuit, Brrj/Jr?/ J. said : "The Statute 

 of Frauds is a remedial law, and we ought not to endeavour to strain 

 the words in order to take a particular case out of the statute. In the 

 17th section it is provided that in the case of a sale of goods above the 

 value of .£10 the buyer must accept and actually receive part of the 

 goods so sold. There can be no acceptance or actual receipt by the 

 buyer unless there be a change of possession ; and unless the seller 

 divests himself of the possession of the goods, though but for a moment, 

 the property remains in him. Here the plaintiffs had a lien on the 

 horse, and were not compellable to part with the possession till the 

 price was paid. Then the question is, was there anything to deprive 

 them of that right ? It is said that the horse was fired, but after that 

 he still remained in their possession, and then he was sent under the 

 care of their servant to Kimi)ton Park. But that was no act of delivery 

 to dispossess them of the horse. At Kimpton Park he was entered in 

 the name of one of the plaintiffs, and they therefore still retained a 

 control over him. How can it be said that the horse was in the pos- 

 session of the defendant when he had no right to compel a delivery to 

 him. For he could not, on tendering the keep, maintain trover against 

 the park-keeper, because the possession had not passed from the vendors 

 to him. The case of Elmore v. Stone is distinguishable. There the 

 original owner of the horse had stables in which he kept horses as 

 owner, and others where he kept them as livery-stable keeper ; and the 

 Court considered that by changing tlie horse from the one to the other 

 he had divested himself of the possession, and given up his lien. But 

 there is no circumstance of that sort here." 



The {)rincipal question in Jordan v. Noiion was irhdher there ever 

 was a complete contract of jmrchase, the terms of which had to he gathered 

 from Utters. The plaintiff and defendant lived thirty miles apart, and 

 on October 16, 1837, at the request of the latter, a mare was sent to a 

 public-house half-way between their residences, for the defendant to try; 

 but as he would only offer 20gs. for her, the plaintiff's groom took her 

 back. Next day plaintiff wrote and offered him the mare at 20gs., and 

 defendant replied — 



" I will take the mare at 20gs., of course ivarranted ; but as you say 



