WARRANTING. 197 



or becomes lame again from navicular disease : if war- 

 ranted, in law you might be liable, and have to re- 

 ceive him back. 



Caveat Emptor, p. 304, quoting from Lord Ellen- 

 borough says : " I have always held, and now hold, 

 that a warranty of soundness is broken, if the animal 

 at the time of sale had any infirmity upon him which 

 rendered him less fit for present service." 



1st. Again, if you sell a horse perfectly fresh and 

 unblemished, and that horse, a week afterwards, 

 throws out a spavin : if warranted, in law you might 

 be liable, and have to receive him back. 



2nd. If you sell a horse perfectly fresh and unble- 

 mished, and that horse, a month afterwards, becomes 

 blind from ophthalmia ; and the purchaser proves that 

 the sire and dam of that horse were blind from that 

 cause, it is an hereditary disease : If warranted, in law 

 you might be liable, and have to receive him back. 



Caveat Emptor, p. 313. "Where, however, the 

 proof of pedigree and hereditary disease: are both 

 accessible, it seems clear that a constitutional taint is 

 unsoundness." 



From the foregoing two sets of examples, with the 

 quotations from law at the bottom of each, and which 

 have been brought to bear on exactly similar ques- 

 tions, you may judge of the difficulties you might 

 occasionally be placed in, as a seller, by warranting. 

 I have used the word might throughout them all, 

 nothing regarding horseflesh in law being positively 

 certain, for so much depends on particular circum- 

 stances. " Unsoundness itself is sometimes sufficient 

 " to break a warranty ; at other times there must 

 " have been knowledge of the unsoundness. Most 



