300 WARRANTY OF SOUNDNESS, ETC. 
“facts.” There is nothing like facts. “ One fact” is worth, 
in his estimation, no end of “fine writing and, in proof of 
this, he gives us a “ detail” of facts, which, I confess, does 
seem to me “ tedious” enough, because it is marked through- 
out with a very strong tincture of egotism. Probably the 
readers of the Veterinarian will agree with me that it is not 
very interesting to know precisely either what Mr. Barratt 
said to Mr. Hales, or what Mr. Hales said to Mr. Barratt ; 
or that “ the defendant was an auctioneer or that “ the 
plaintiff resided in Wales;” or even the startling “fact,” 
that “the advocates, on either side, were two brothers in 
the regular habit of practising in the Shrewsbury county 
court.” All this may be very true, and I dare say Mr, 
Hales’ narrative is in the main correct, as far as it goes ; 
but he leaves untouched both the “facts” by which the 
verdict was obtained, and the principle involved in the verdict 
itself. I must, therefore, endeavour, as briefly as possible, 
to supply this defect. 
First, then, of the facts. Neither Mr, Hales nor the “re- 
spectable practitioner ” who was called in at his suggestion 
to confirm his opinion, ever saw the mare in dispute lame . 
This they admitted. They were ready enough to testify to 
the serious nature of thrush of the hind foot- — that it of neces^- 
sity impaired the animal’s value and usefulness — that, after 
work, it must certainly produce lameness — that it often 
resulted in contraction — that if was dangerous to endeavour 
to remove it, insomuch that ophthalmia commonly super- 
vened on the stoppage of the discharge — all this they had the 
courage to assert, but they were compelled to admit they had 
never seen the mare lame themselves, The means adopted 
to satisfy a jury of the actual presence of lameness was the 
really curious part of the case. For this purpose a number 
of witnesses, altogether ignorant of horseflesh — servants of 
the plaintiff, who, I doubt not, had been, by some process 
which I cannot pretend to explain, really brought to believe 
what they stated, swore stoutly to the presence of lameness, 
not occasional, but constant — not in one or two legs only, but 
in all the legs — in the stable and out of the stable, on smooth 
roads as well as rough ones, always lame, everywhere lame. 
There could be no mistake about their testimony. Mr. Hales 
arrogates to himself too much when he claims to have been 
the “principal cause” of the verdict which I have condemned, 
and I never meant to “imply” anything of the kind. The 
gardener who, in addition to the lameness, saw a “ profuse 
stinking discharge running down the legs,” or the butler who 
tickled the frogs with a straw, and “got about a spoonful of 
