651 
VETERINARY JURISPRUDENCE. 
Court of Queen’s Bench. 
Accident to Horses on a Railway. 
Austin and Another v. the Manchester , Sheffield, and Lin- 
colnshire Railway Company. 
In the Court of Queen’s Bench, the above case was recently 
tried. It was an action brought by Messrs. Austin and Davis, 
horse-dealers, residing in London, to recover £75 for injury done 
to certain horses. It appeared, by the case for the plaintiffs, that 
in February of last year the plaintiffs bought twenty-one horses 
at Beverley Fair, which having been taken to the station of the 
company at New Holland, it was arranged that they should be 
conveyed thence to London, and the fare £22.. 10s., was paid. 
The son of Austin and a servant were left to accompany the 
horses to town. They were placed in three trucks, covered with 
tarpaulin. The train had not proceeded far, when the plaintiffs’ 
servant perceived that a wheel of one of the trucks smoked, and 
when they reached the station at Spalding, he pointed it out to 
the guard ; but was told “ to mind his own business,” and the 
train went on. At the next stoppage he again pointed out the 
state of the wheel, and as no attention was paid to him he was 
about to grease it himself, but was prevented by the train going 
off, and he was obliged to get into the carriage. A little past 
Peterborough a concussion was felt, the axle-tree of the truck 
broke, the wheel which had been burning came off, and the trucks 
were thrown off the line. One of the horses, a blood mare, had 
her back broken, and it was necessary to kill her, and others were 
much injured. The train did not stop a moment, but went on, and 
the servant would have been left behind if he had not been 
dragged into a carriage through the window, but the horses were 
left there until a special train was sent back to fetch them from 
March, the next station. Evidence of these facts was given, and 
veterinary surgeons were called to prove the damage. 
Sir Frederick Thesiger , for the defence, urged that the company 
which wus sued, although legally liable, was not strictly and 
morally so, for their line extended only to Great Grimsby ; from 
thence the line was the East Lincolnshire, which went on to 
Peterborough, and from thence to London it was the Eastern 
Counties. It was usual in the conveyance of horses to place 
them in horse-boxes, which was the only prudent and safe mode 
