xliv 



INTKODUCTION. 



sound, great difficulties must frequently arise from the 

 nature of the case. For a warranty is in the nature of 

 an Insurance, and when a man warrants a horse sound 

 he insures that of which he can know very little. It is 

 not like the warranty of manufactured goods, where a 

 man calculates, from the skill and materials employed, the 

 exact amount of responsihility he can take upon himself. 

 When a man warrants a horse he does it at his own risk, 

 and of course that risk is very much greater, when he does 

 it upon his own opinion, than when he warrants after the 

 horse has been pronounced sound by men of veterinary 

 skill. So that if an action is brought on an alleged breach 

 of warranty, he is, in the former case, almost entirely in 

 the hands of the veterinary evidence produced by the pur- 

 chaser ; in the latter case he has men of skill to prove the 

 exact state of the horse at the time of sale. For instance, 

 should the purchaser produce veterinary evidence to prove 

 that the horse has a bone spavin, and that it must have 

 existed at the time of sale, the vendor in the latter case 

 would be able to prove by actual examination that no such 

 spavin did then exist, and would therefore have a very 

 strong case to go to a jury. 

 Warranty But it appears that soundness is a subject on which, 



should seldom from the nature of the case, a warranty should very 



be given. , '' 



seldom be given : for there seems no reason why a person 

 who buys a horse should not act as he would in any other 

 transaction where there is risk. For instance, a man 

 buying a house does not merely examine it himself, and 

 then, because he likes it, buy it with a warranty ; but he 

 takes his surveyor with him, who points out all its defects, 

 and then he buys it or not according to the opinion he may 

 form of its value after these have been taken into consi- 

 deration. 



And in all cases where a risk is run and an insurance 

 effected, there are regular rules laid down by which such 

 transactions are governed. For where a person insures 

 his life, he submits to a regular medical investigation 

 and no company would act in so unbusinesslike a manner 



