Kidd V. Rotjal Agricultural Society of England. 665 
onlj' five days. It is perfectly clear from the letters that Mr. Wells had been 
out of cake for ten days ; and if you find an inaccuracy of that sort on one 
part of the case, you will accept with a little caution that which relates to 
another. But if you believe the evidence of Mr. Holmes, and have any trust 
in his long experience, he gives you the reasons for which he arrives at that 
practical solution of this matter. And, Gentlemen, do not be disturbed or 
think less of his opinion because of the accident that twenty or thirty other 
cattle suffered similarly in a greater or less degree, because, recollect this — if 
you drive twenty cattle into a thick clover-field on a dewy morning, in the 
course of a short time they would be standing up distended exactly in the 
same way as you have heard described with reference to these cattle — blown 
out like so many animal bladders in a very short time. Therefore it is idle 
to say that, because twenty or thirty suffered, you are to take up the case of 
the Defendants rather than that of the Plaintiff. What I submit is this — ■ 
they were all being stall-fed, they were all treated in the same way, they 
are all subject to the same influences, and they each took it to a gi-eater or 
less extent, just according to the degree in which they more voraciously 
indulged their appetite. I venture to put to yon this, that Mr. Holmes' 
evidence gives you a distinct practical solution of the mischief which occurred 
to these animals — there is an effect, there is a cause : he has explained it all 
to you : he has given you that which is not theory, but the result of a long 
life of practical experience. Mr. Freeman, Mr. Broughton, and five other 
gentlemen who were called, more or less, according to age and experience, 
confirming, and the result surely which I am entitled to contend for is this — 
that you have called here from Yorkshire, Leeds, and various places, these 
gentlemen professing the art of veterinary surgery, giving their evidence in a 
case which to-morrow will be published to all the farmers in this country 
and all England, who gave it therefore under the sanction that they will be 
held to the opinions they have uttered, and who, having heard this whole 
case, stake their professional reputation individually and collectively upon 
this united opinion, that the cow died and that these cattle suffered, from tym- 
panitis, produced by an alteration more or less sudden of food acting specially 
quickly amongst Short-horned cattle of high breed, and still more so upon 
cattle who were at the time undergoing the process of stall-feeding. 
Now, Gentlemen, I have, I hope, fulfilled whet I promised. I might, if I 
were to take the opportunity which the occasion would allow me, address you 
at greater length; but you have watched this case throughout, and I 
am very anxious, before I resume my seat, that whatever be the result of this 
case I should be able to feel that I have made no appeal that was not made to 
your judgment. Because I do feel that this is specially a case of such 
immense importance to the interest I represent (and no doubt of considerable 
importance to those whom my friend represents) that I am sure you will 
exercise upon it the most careful and anxious and deliberate judgment before 
you give your verdict. I know not of what materials that jury is composed ; 
for aught I know there may be more fanners than manufacturers, and more 
private gentlemen than either; but this I do know — whatever its component 
parts may be, I have not the slightest doubt it is " pure linseed" in its com- 
position, and that it will in this case retire from that box with a determina- 
tion not to find a verdict against me, unless satisfied upon the positive weight 
of testimony that the Defendants have made out their plea. It was open to 
the Defendants, of course. Gentlemen, to have taken another course if they 
thought proper here, instead of pjlacing justification upon this record. My 
friend may fritter away or criticise the language of that libel as he pleases, but 
you cannot under-estimate its effects. It attributes the death of that cow, 
and the disease of these cattle to cake manufactured by Mr. Kidd ; it charges 
him ^nth supplying the materials for " another case of so-called poisoning ;" 
