V KTERINAR Y J U1USPRUDEN CE. 
279 
fifteen miles at a good pace without drawing bit.” Laying aside 
the decided opinion expressed by the professional gentleman who 
had been in the witness-box, he held such usage to be quite enough 
to account for the lameness, and consequently to entitle his client 
to recover the damages he asked at their hands. 
The Lord Chief Justice, in summing up, told the jury that the 
simple question which must guide them was, whether the horse 
was or was not sound at the time of the bargain between the 
plaintiff and defendant. 
After a short deliberation, the jury returned a verdict for the 
defendant. 
The justice of this verdict will probably be acknowledged by 
a majority of professional readers. No veterinary surgeon can 
have been long in practice without having met with many in- 
stances of lameness originating instantaneously, and, if neglected 
for even a short time, baffling every subsequent effort to subdue 
it. Lameness of this nature may, with rare exceptions, be even- 
tually traced to some affection of the delicate and beautiful ma- 
chinery of the foot; but its precise seat is often undiscoverable 
during life, except by the nicest care. The whole tenor of the 
evidence in the foregoing case would lead one to rank in this ca- 
tegory the disease which gave rise to the action, and, conse- 
quently, to conclude that the verdict was a just one, inasmuch as 
the lameness originated on the journey from Horncastle to Essex, 
certainly one day, and probably two or three days after the de- 
fendant had parted with the possession of the horse. 
Still the plaintiff seems to be hardly used in the transaction. 
He bought the horse of the defendant, and on the same day 
resold it to Mr. Marriott, in an apparently sound condition. The 
horse was in Mr. Marriott’s possession when the unsoundness is 
presumed to have originated, and on the very ground on which a 
verdict for the defendant was returned in the case of Saunderson 
v. Harrison, a verdict for the defendant ought to have been re- 
turned in the case of Marriott v. Saunderson, in which proceed- 
ings were stayed on defendant paying all the costs. If Saunderson 
could not recover of Harrison, it is clear, on the evidence, Mar- 
riott ought not to have recovered of Saunderson. The horse was 
either unsound when Harrison sold it to Saunderson, or it be- 
came unsound after Saunderson sold it to Marriott ; but there is 
no pretence whatever for saying the unsoundness originated 
during the very few hours Saunderson retained possession of it ; 
yet he suffers. 
