VETERINARY JURISPRUDENCE. 
473 
general usage affecting a trade that the words used should 
bear a specific meaning attached, that meaning which the 
usage sanctioned, and persons engaged in dealings within the 
trade were considered by the law to make a contract by a 
reference to that usage. Where the words were clear, the law 
did not allow usage to control their meaning : but where there 
was ambiguity in terms, and the trade affixed a particular 
meaning to words, it was but common sense that those en- 
gaged in the trade should be considered as acting according 
to the meaning which the usage attached to the terms, and as 
dealing on foot of that usage. But the jury should be satisfied 
not that it was the usage in a particular establishment, but a 
general usage governing the trade ; for, unless the usage was 
general, and prevailing in the place in which the contract was 
made, the law did not allow any interpretation of the words 
by a mere reference to usage. With regard to the law as to 
what constituted unsoundness in a horse, he (the Chief Bar on) 
did not concur in the proposition of Mr. Battersby ; he was 
more disposed to say that his opinion, and that which he 
would read, very nearly corresponded with the evidence given 
by Mr. Dycer. His lordship then read the opinion in which 
he concurred, namely, that unsoundness in a horse consisted 
in any disease at the time of the sale which diminished his 
natural usefulness, and rendered him less capable of per- 
forming work of any description ; or a disease which, in its 
ordinary progress, would diminish the usefulness of the horse; 
or if the animal had from disease or accident undergone an 
alteration of structure, which at the time, or at a future period, 
would, as its ordinary effect, diminish the natural usefulness 
of the animal. His lordship, having gone through the prin- 
cipal part of the evidence, left the case with 
The Jury , who found a verdict for the plaintiff, and £59 10 ,?., 
the keep of the horses. — Saunders's News Letter, July 4, 1854. 
XXVII. 
02 
