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EDTTORTAL OBSERVATIONS. 
In the horse-cause “ Redfern v. Hopgood,” contained in 
our number for this month, Mr. Thomas Walton Mayer, Y.S., 
of Newcastle-under-Lyme, gave evidence on the part of the 
plaintiff, and is, in the report, stated to have said : — “ His (the 
horse in question) hocks were naturally badly-shaped hocks ; 
so bad, that he (Mr. Mayer) could not consider him sound, 
even if no disease were present This is an opinion based upon 
novel and rather perilous ground. It opens the door, not to 
a fresh kind of unsoundness only, but to an additional cause 
of lameness as well, — one that we may henceforth denominate 
congenital lameness . And we thank Mr. Mayer for the hint, 
which we shall not, on some future day, fail to turn to account. 
Henceforward, congenital lameness will come into our nomen- 
clature. But, what are we to say about congenital defect or 
deformity which does not produce lameness ? Are we to view 
it as unsoundness because it appears likely or “has a tendency” 
to generate lameness? And, if so, what are we to view or 
actually pronounce as congenital deformity? Shall we, in 
every individual instance, be able at once to decide upon this 
point positively? We are afraid not; and therefore it is, that, 
having once opened the door, we hardly know how we shall 
set bounds to its swinging open, backwards and forwards, and 
whether we shall not, in the end, be forced to close it again. 
We feel ourselves in the position of a fox-hunter, w T ho, in the 
chase, the moment he has jumped his horse into a field, if he 
be a provident hunter, begins to look about him, to learn at 
what gap or gateway he is to make his egress out of the en- 
closure. To illustrate our meaning, we will take the point 
before us, viz. the “ naturally bad- shaped hocks.” Such Mr. 
Mayer described them to be; a description confirmed by 
Mr. Careless, V.S. But, did Mr. Litt, another Y.S., think 
the same of them ? He said, “ he did not consider these 
hocks by any means ^o^-shaped ones ; but, apart from the 
curb, there was no disease, nor, in his opinion , any peculiar gore- 
disposition to disease ! The horse was a sound horse, with that 
(the curb’s) exception.” Here, then, we have at once a dif- 
ference about congenital deformity or mis-shape. Still, there 
are hocks on which, perhaps, none of us would differ in 
opinion — hocks indisputably “ bad” from birth. Would such 
hocks constitute unsoundness ? Here we find ourselves on 
the brink of that bottomless pit, — the question of soundness. 
One step more would peril our footing. We shall, therefore, 
for the present here leave the subject, simply adding, we must 
not blot out from memory — congenital unsoundness. 
