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HORSE ' CAUSE. 473 
(which he has exercised every day for six months) never, to his 
knowledge, evinced any signs of lameness. 
Mr. Coleman’s evidence, to which the Chief Justice in parti¬ 
cular lent his ear, and on which, it will be seen, the issue of .the 
case turned, amounted to this :—In May, the Professor, in writing, 
declares that the horse shows no cause of luisoundness. In No¬ 
vember following (not having examined the horse in the interval), 
he repeats that the horse was not in the least lame in May; but 
adds, that at that time he could not have gone through the same 
exertions with the same ease as he w^ould have done without 
such ossification ; and that, if put to ordinary work, he would be¬ 
come lame. 
We do not perfectly understand this. Did Mr. Coleman not 
observe the ossification of the cartilage in May, or did he af¬ 
terwards alter his opinion as to the compatibility of that ossifica¬ 
tion with actual soundness? If, in Mr. Coleman’s then opinion, 
the ossification in May constituted no cause of unsoundness, was 
there not additional reason to adhere to the same opinion, when 
six months had passed, and the horse, although not at full work, 
had been daily exercised, and had not been for a moment lame, 
and was not lame at the time of trial ? 
To the logical decision of the Judge, that if the animal was, 
at the time of sale, incapable of that which he was equal to in a 
state of perfection, and that, if the seeds of disease then existed 
in his foot, the defence was put out of court,” we do not object; 
but we confess that we are not altogether satisfied with the manner 
in which the trial was conducted, nor with its termination; and 
we take leave of this strange case, by submitting to our readers a 
query or two of some importance :— 
1st. What constitutes unsoundness ? 
2d. Can a horse, which is by no one said to be lame, be pro¬ 
nounced to be unsound ? (in action ?) 
3d. Does the conversion of cartilage into bone, or any other 
altered structure (concerned in action), constitute unsoundness, 
unless lameness is actually present ? 
4th. Can a horse be considered as sound or unsound, in refer¬ 
ence either to what is past or what is to come ? 
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