ON WARRANTY, &C. 403 
But, since every splint or spavin is not productive of lameness; 
and since a man might make no objection to such a defect unat¬ 
tended by lameness, while he certainly would, did it exist; and 
since, also, it requires a person conversant in the animal structure 
to distinguish between the likelihood of such events, it seems most 
fitting to make all these cases for restoration: and the courts 
have commonly made them pleas for return.” 
The fifth kind of Lameness consists in those chronic diseases 
of the foot which every now and then occasion lameness that 
may be concealed at other times by shoeing. Such cases come 
under the jurisdiction of law No. I., even although lameness 
should not be actually present at the time.” 
This view of the laws of lameness (if we may so name them) 
differs in some important points from the one that has so very re¬ 
cently been presented to us at home : a careful collation of the 
two, may enable us to draw up another; and one, perhaps, pos¬ 
sessing some advantages over both. 
Now that we have arrived at the subject of u lameness,” we 
embrace the opportunity, as a favourable one, to make a few com¬ 
ments on that part of French veterinary jurisprudence which 
legislates, that “ Any lameness (or other defect) perceptible at 
the time of sale, or that may arise posterior to the sale, cannot 
form a plea for return: that lameness (or other defect) alone 
comes within the pale of the law, the cause of which existed prior 
to sale, but which, itself, was not apparent at the moment the 
sale was made.” 
Most assuredly, a person coming into court to plead for the re¬ 
turn of a “ warranted” horse, because he found, on the purchase 
being completed, that the animal possessed only three legs in 
place of four (passing, for a moment, the supposition that any 
one would be fool enough, or rogue enough, to risk such an impo¬ 
sition), must show such a ridiculous and silly plea for return, that 
the jury would perhaps be justified in nonsuiting the plaintiff: 
but, to lay it down as a law , that w 7 hat “ is perceptible at the 
time of sale cannot form a plea for return,” is, in our humble 
estimation, not quite and altogether reconcilable with equity or 
justice; at least, not on the ground of bare “ perceptibility.” 
We conceive that the law ought rather to turn upon the actual 
knowledge of the defect by the purchaser “ at the time of sale” 
(either from its self-obviousness, or some other substantial reason), 
than upon its own “ perceptibility;” because, what is perceptible 
to one person may not prove so to another, or even to the same 
person under other circumstances. 
English law seems to have passed by this point in directing 
all its force upon the simple fact—whether the animal, being 
