232 
VETERINARY JURISPRUDENCE. 
contraction in the fore feet, which had been forming six or eight months. 
Certainly that spavin was not curable. I saw the horse when worked in the 
Shannon, and he was then running lame. 
Cross-examined by Mr. Platt : — The hocks were naturally badly formed. 
Any thing producing inflammatory action will produce spavin, and contrac- 
tion may be produced bv hard work and bad shoeing. No one who is a 
judge of a horse could mistake a bone for a blood spavin. 
Win. Lewis, examined by Mr. Thesiger: — I am a veterinary surgeon, and 
examined this horse on the 25th of June ; I found it lame in the hock from 
a bone spavin, which must have been forming six or eight months. The fore 
feet were contracted. 
James Conway, examined by Mr. Chambers : — I was groom to Mr. Haw- 
kins, of Colchester, and am so to his son ; I have been in their service twenty 
years. On the 28th of July I saw the horse at my master’s stables. We tried 
it, and it did not go very well. The near hock was larger than the other. We 
kept it for a day, and it was sent back to Mr. Garrett. 
Mr. Dawson, auctioneer, proved that he sold the horse for £21 : the ex- 
penses were £2..0s..6d. He examined the horse, and thought he saw the. 
appearance of a spavin in the near hind leg. It was sold without a warranty, 
with all faults. 
Mr. Platt submitted that there was a variance in the contract as laid in the 
declaration and as proved. The declaration said it was for a sum of money; 
here it was for a sum of money and a pair of trousers. [Laughter.] 
The Learned Judge over-ruled the objection. 
Mr. Platt then addressed the jury for defendant, observing, that he had 
felt some dismay at the tailor’s mounting a horse fifteen hands and a half 
high, when, perhaps, he had never before elevated himself higher than the 
shopboard. [Laughter.] Here was this person aspiring to have a fine ani- 
mal, and he bought this hunter ; but, with an eye to business, he would not 
buy it unless the seller would take something in kind, and therefore fitted 
him with a pair of breeches. Fifty-five pounds and a pair of breeches was a 
high price for a hunter that had gone through two seasons ; and, perhaps, 
the opinion of his friends that he had given too much for it might have in- 
disposed him to keep the horse. 
The learned gentleman then proceeded to read the letters which passed, 
and to comment on them. In one of his letters he said, “ The horse has 
made some terrible mistakes; what am 1 to do?” He had got this terrible 
high horse — almost as big as an elephant — and he did not know what to do 
with it — “ What am I to do ?” [Laughter .] — “ He is all I could wish, ex- 
cept that which is the main.” What did the man mean — the mane of the 
horse ? Did he mean to say the legs were all right — that the tail flowed well 
and the mane was wrong. [Laughter.] It was clear that the poor man was 
so terrified with this horse that he did not know what he did. The defendant’s 
first note quieted the poor tailor for a time, but seventeen days afterwards he 
wrote again, and it appeared it was not till the 20tli of May that he discovered 
for a certainty that the horse was lame. But doctors disagreed, and it would 
be shewn that the animal was perfectly sound, and was sound at this hour. 
The defendant had the horse eighteen months, and he never went an hour 
lame during that time. A bone spavin was generally the cause of lameness, but 
every horse was not formed in the same way. A spavin was formed out of a dis- 
eased state of ossification, generally caused by some violence or over-exertion, 
and which would produce inflammation : but in some horses the bone would 
naturally protrude more, and then there was no unsoundness. They would 
observe the phrase which Mr. Dawson had used — he said he thought he saw 
the appearance of a spavin. He was a gentleman of great experience in horses ; 
