SALES WITH ENGAGEMENTS CONSIDERED. 277 
to the seller. A man of straw may buy a horse heavily 
engaged, and from neglect or design refuse to declare the 
minor or any other forfeits, and put the vendor to an extra, 
unjust, and vexatious expense. 
A case came under my own observation which I will briefly 
relate, to show how unfairly the practice operates against the 
seller: a person who bought a yearling with his engage- 
ments died, and his executors sold the horse again, on the 
same conditions, by public auction. The animal was bought 
by a man who neither struck him out nor run him ; and as no 
one else had the power to do so, the forfeits were augmented 
to a serious sum. The executors refusing to pay this, the 
vendor (the nominator) was bound to do so by the rules of 
racing. Thus the vendor was deprived of every sort of 
remedy for the recovery of this unlooked-for outlay. It was 
equally useless to place on the forfeit list the name of a 
defunct person, or the names of others who refused to pay or 
had not the means to do so. Now to enable the vendor to 
have what he expects and what he is most justly entitled to, 
it would be well, I venture to think, if the aggregate amount 
of the smaller forfeits were stated at the time in the con- 
ditions of sale, and the sum deposited by the buyer in the 
hands of Messrs. Weatherby before the horse was given up. 
And in default of payment of these minor forfeits, the horse 
should be at once put up and resold, the defaulter paying the 
expenses of the resale and any loss accruing to the vendor. 
Such a rule as this would, I think, meet the exigencies of the 
case. Or it might be made that before the larger forfeit 
became due—if it were not duly paid, the vendor should have 
the power of striking the horse out, notwithstanding any 
conditions to the contrary in the catalogue of sale. 
There is another ground for very general discontent in the 
