THE 
VETERINARIAN. 
VOL. XXXI, 
No. 365. 
MAY, 1858. 
Fourth Series, 
No. 41. 
Communications and Cases. 
COMMENTS ON THE CASE OF BARRETT v . 
PREECE. 
By J. M. Hales, M.R.C.V.S., Oswestry. 
Time was, when the breath was out the man would die 
but it appears that the case of Barrett v. Preece is not likely 
soon to be defunct. Not satisfied with a partial report in the 
c Salopian Journal/ nor with Mr. Litt’s long declamatory 
letter in the same paper, some of the parties interested in 
the matter have seen it now transferred to the pages of the 
Veterinarian, with a “ rider” by Mr. Dayus, who had examined 
the mare a few days before the trial, for the especial purpose 
of giving evidence thereon. So long as they confined them- 
selves to newspaper reports, and to writings in the c Salopian 
Journal/ I should have taken no notice of the subject, as 
I hold professional letters in local newspapers in the light of 
advertisements; but as the case has appeared in your pages, 
and has also been made the text for a long tirade upon the 
absurdity of some horse-causes, and by implication an en- 
deavour is likewise made to make me an abettor of such ab- 
surdities, and the principal cause that “great injustice” was 
done to Mr. Preece, I wish to be permitted to say a few words 
in reference to it. In doing so I shall not follow Mr. Litt 
into any imaginative or suppositious case, nor attempt to 
establish the connection between “chops and tomato sauce,” 
-or the celebrated case of Bardell v. Pickwick: nor will I enter 
into any calculation as to the amount of horse-knowledge 
contained in a judge’s head, the quantity of horsehair in his 
wig being given, nor essay to solve the old problem of the 
Goodwin Sands and Tenterden steeple, as I consider one fact 
worth a good deal of what perhaps to more refined tastes 
than mine may be considered fine writing. 
XXXI, 
33 
