THE HORSE. 179 



A man saw a very handsome chestnut horse at Horncastle fair, 

 and was astonished at the lowness of the price asked for it. After 

 some chaffering he became the purchaser, taking it without warranty 

 or anything else ; and having paid his money, he gave a ' tip ' of 

 five shillings to the groom, and asked him what was really the matter 

 with the animal that he should be sold so cheap. The man, after 

 some hesitation, declared that the horse was a perfect animal with 

 the exception of two faults. ' Two faults ! ' said the purchaser ; 

 ' well, tell me one of them.' ' One is,' said the man, ' that when 

 you turn him into a field he is very difficult to catch.' ' That,' said 

 the purchaser, ' is no harm to me, as I make a point of always 

 keeping my horses in the stable, and never turning them into the 

 field. Now of the other?' 'The other,' said the man, scratching 

 his head, and looking slyly up, 'the other is that when you have 

 caught him he is not worth a rap,' 



The custom of warranties, one may observe, has rather 

 gone out of fashion now. Even when given with the best faith 

 they opened a terribly wide door to litigation. No lapse of 

 time puts an end to them, none, that is to say, by law defined. 

 If a jury can be persuaded to believe that a horse who has 

 become unsound as a three-year-old had the germs of his 

 unsoundness latent in him when sold with a warranty as a 

 yearling, it is all up with the seller. And a ' British Judy ' (to 

 borrow Mrs. Crupp's time-honoured paraphrase), prone as it is 

 to strange notions of things, is never, it may be parenthetically 

 observed, so prone as in matters of or belonging to that noble 

 animal, the horse. Sometimes a limited warranty will be given, 

 valid for a month, or some period shorter or longer, as the case 

 may be. But any such limit must inevitably, however unjustly, 

 be touched with some sense of suspicion. An examination 

 by a skilled veterinary surgeon, and a fair trial, are as good 

 pledges as any warranty. They are what the best class of 

 dealers generally offer, and what buyers will be wisest to take. 



Buying at Tattersall's, or at any public auction, is of course 

 something of a lottery too. But the chances against you here are 

 much less, allowing of course that you do not neglect the ordi 

 nary precautions which a prudent man will observe in any trans- 



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