258 
REMARKS ON VETERINARY JURISPRUDENCE, 
IN REFERENCE TO CRIB-BITING, IN PARTICULAR. 
By Warne RADDALL, Veterinary Surgeon, Manchester. 
Mr. Editor, — Reading lately a number of horse-cases which have 
been tried at various law courts of this country, and feeling con- 
vinced that the profession is sadly, as a body, undecided in opinion 
as to veterinary jurisprudence, and through the glorious uncertainty 
of the law, or, probably, more frequently, courts are deceived by 
the very erroneous and conflicting evidence adduced in these 
cases, by which I am satisfied many an innocent party is vic- 
timized, disgraced, and, in a pecuniary point of view, injured to an 
inappreciable extent ; for not only is the mind under these circum- 
stances irritated, but, to defend an action, money needed to a great 
amount, even be the grounds of defence whatever they may ; and in 
case of an action being lost (I am here presuming the defendant to 
be a dealer), what a loss does such a man experience in his trade ! — 
for it is a notorious fact, that in courts of law popular opinion is 
generally strong against a dealer, although there are in the body of 
horse-dealers a great number of highly respectable and honourable 
men : the prejudice no doubt arises from the fact of there being a 
class of low unprincipled men, who buy and sell horses, and, with 
horses, their own honour and honesty also. But does that justify the 
sweeping clause being applied to the whole, I would ask 1 and 
certainly would for n^self say, No. I have heard several respect- 
able horse-dealers say, that they would, rather than submit to an 
action, compromise any case for the reasons I have just stated, 
viz., the loss of repute they would be liable to sustain in case of 
defeat, and the probability of defeat increased by public prejudice, 
however good their cause. In this land of supposed liberty and 
justice, is it not an evil that should be removed, and that as 
speedily as possible ? I feel quite convinced that the facts I have 
just stated are familiar to most of the veterinarians in practice. 
Such then being the case, why do not the profession as a body set 
their shoulders to the wheel, and launch it out of the gulph in which 
it is now plunged 1 I did hope some year or two since, from this sub- 
ject having been taken up by some spirited and eminent among our 
profession, ere this we should have had something definite for our 
guidance, and that we should have had the diseases of the horse clas- 
sified, and respective tables arranged, shewing this so-called disease 
to constitute (belonging to this or that table) soundness or unsound- 
ness, as the case might be ; and in order more fully to elucidate the 
principle, a certain class of diseases, as well as lamenesses, should 
