586 MEANING OF ACCEPTANCE. 



bnt by virtue of the original bargain. His lordship accordingly left the 

 question to the jury, " whether the verbal contract for the sale of the 

 horse was complete before there was any agreement about the horse 

 being returned by the plaintiff, and the horse was lent to the plaintiff 

 by the defendant as his owner ; or, whether the retainer of the horse 

 was part of the bargain ? " The jury found the contract to be complete 

 before the permission to keep the horse was given to the plaintiff, and 

 that the horse was lent by the defendant as his owner. A verdict was 

 directed for the plaintiff, with leave to move to enter a verdict for the 

 defendant, or a nonsuit, on the ground that there was no evidence of a 

 sufScient acceptance of the horse in question within the 17th section of 

 the Statute of Frauds. 



The Court of Queen's Bench discharged the rule. Erie J. said : 

 " The question is whether the buyer has accepted the horse, and 

 actually received it. All that passed has been merely by word of 

 mouth. There has been nothing which, according to the language of 

 many cases, amounts to manual delivery. The statute for many years 

 was very much praised. I believe that the person who inserted the 

 words had no notion what he meant by ' acceptance.' That opinion I 

 found on the everlasting discussion which has gone on, as if possession 

 according to law could mean only manual prehension. It may mean 

 that, or it may mean handing over to a servant ; but the question is 

 whether there has been an exercise of the right inconsistent with any 

 supposition but that of ownership ; whether there is an actual sale 

 and an act which is inconsistent with anything but ownership ? When 

 you apply that here, you have the finding of the jury that there was an 

 actual sale, and that the purchaser was assumed to be in actual posses- 

 sion. He permitted the other party to retain the horse. All, indeed, 

 passed by word of mouth ; but to my mind it is a most decisive 

 case of possession, and one in which the vendor had lost his claim 



to lieu." 



Lord Campbell C.J. added : " I agree with the rest of the Court, 

 while the Statute of Frauds remains we are bound to give effect to it, 

 and shall do so ; but we are doing so here. There has been an accept- 

 ance and receipt of the chattel on the finding of the jury, which is quite 

 justified by the evidence. The vendor became the bailee of the horse, 

 and held by the authority of the vendee. The case is within the excep- 

 tion of section 17. I must say that, giving, as I do, full effect to the 

 statute while it remains, I shall rejoice when it is gone. In my opinion 

 it does much more harm than good. It promotes fraud, rather than 

 prevents it, and introduces distinctions which I must confess are not 

 productive of justice." 



