204 STRAY PAPERS ON VETERINARY JURISPRUDENCE. 
broken. In legal language this covenant is termed a warranty ; 
it is a pledge between the seller and buyer that for a certain sum 
of money an animal has been sold “ sound and free from vice.” 
I will endeavour to give you, in as brief a manner as I can, the 
different legal opinions on its nature and use. 
“ By the civil law every person is bound to warrant the thing 
he sells or conveys; but the common law binds him not unless 
there be a warranty in deed or in law. This warranty may be 
either general or particular. Mere general terms of warranty are 
never considered as binding, unless it can be shewn that they were 
intended and served as an inducement to vary the contract or are 
effected with fraud. But a particular aud express warranty goes 
directly to the foundation of the whole matter, and cannot be too 
clearly expressed nor too strictly construed.” In the case of Bul- 
lon v. Corder, 1 B. Moore 109, cited in the work on the Laws 
relating to Horses, from which the greater portion of these remarks 
are taken, “ the Court held that the words which he, the defendant, 
could warrant were sufficient to imply an express and special war- 
ranty.” You must, however, bear in mind, that an animal having 
disease upon him, and purchased without any warranty, the pur- 
chaser has no remedy, unless a fraud has been practised at the 
time of sale. Where the age is the subject of inquiry, and the 
answer is given from a written paper of pedigree and not from 
the party’s own knowledge, this has been decided not to amount 
to a warranty. “ Dunlop v. Waugh, Peat N. P. C. 123, 167. 
Assumpsit on a promise that the horse was only eight years old, , 
when, in fact, he was fourteen : — It appeared, that at the time of 
the sale the defendant shewed the plaintiff a written pedigree 
which he had received from the person of whom he had bought 
him, and said that he sold the horse according to that pedigree, 
knowing nothing of him further than he learnt therefrom, the mark 
being out of his mouth when he bought him. The pedigree was 
clearly proved to be false, but without any knowledge of the de- 
fendant. Lord Kenyon was clearly of opinion that this was no 
warranty.” It has also been decided that, in an advertisement 
containing the description as to colour, age, &c., the work to which 
the horse was applied, with the term “ warranted,” that in that 
instance the warranty only extends to the soundness of the animal, 
and not to the other particulars. “ Price will not warrant a horse. 
And no length of time elapsed after a sale will alter the nature of 
a contract originally false.” 
But the most important decision with regard to warranty, that 
is, if used and expressed in the following terms, Received this 
day of 18 , the sum of pounds for a 
aged warranted sound and free from vice , is that 
laid down by Lord Mansfield, in Hunt v. Wilkins, Doug. 20 : — 
