VETERINARY MEDICAL JURISPRUDENCE. 115 
lity ? These two horses were bred in the environs of Boulogne ; 
they were reared in the district of Caux; they have remained 
only three days, the one at Paris, and the other at Rheims. The 
history of these two horses contains that of a hundred others 
that I could cite. 
But let us follow the merchant who has been forced at Paris 
to take back the horse which he might have sold without 
danger in other districts. Assisted by the promptness of the 
judgment which condemned him, and aware that the time al¬ 
lowed by the warranty is not yet expired, he betakes himself in 
all haste to Caen, the residence of the seller ; he pleads,—he 
loses his cause : the usage oj "Normandy does not admit immo¬ 
bility in its list of unsoundnesses. 
What a singular position is his ! condemned by the judges of 
Paris to take back a horse which he had sold, because it had 
immobility ; condemned by the judges of Caen to keep the same 
horse, although he evidently laboured under that disease. What 
shall he do with such an animal? shall he sell it for what it is, 
and for what it will fetch ? Equity demands this, and it is that 
which the law also should prescribe. But since his double mis¬ 
adventure, he has inquired about these usages. Having been de¬ 
ceived himself, he has discovered the means of deceiving others. 
He starts for Orleans, and he there easily finds a purchaser; and 
when at the end of some days the unfortunate and simple villager, 
who, perhaps, had parted with some of his wheat to complete* 
the purchase, comes and tells him that his horse has a defect 
which prevents him from being of any service to him, our mer¬ 
chant confesses the fact; but he shews him the custom of Orleans, 
and the poor countryman returns half ruined, beginning to ap¬ 
prehend that which he did not know before, that, in his country, 
they have certain customs relative to unsoundness in horses, arid 
that among them immobility has no place. 
When breeders or agriculturists have a horse which they know 
to be unsound, according to the custom of the country in wdiich 
they live, that animal is of diminished value in their estimation, 
in proportion as the defect which he has is serious, or interferes 
with his use. Certain merchants know this w’ell, and make a 
trade of searching out these animals. They buy them at a low 
price, and they thus find a method of realizing very great profits; 
for they go and sell them in districts where the defects under 
which they labour do not constitute unsoundness. Thus, for 
example, one of these honest dealers, who knows of a fine horse 
affected with ophthalmia, belonging to a farmer of the depart¬ 
ment of Geres, buys him for 60 or 80 francs, because ophthal¬ 
mia in that country is unsoundness: some days afterwards he 
