320 
V F/r FUIN AR Y JURIS PRUDENCE. 
was then a little lame. I delivered it to the hostler who put the 
horse in the stable and tied it up. 1 delivered a letter for Mr, 
Mountstephen to his wife. Cross-examined. —I am a pretty 
good hand at horses. I considered that at the back a splint, but 
1 am no Vet’nary; beside the splint, there was a great deal of 
swelling all down the leg. He met with no accident on the road 
back. When I gave him up to the hostler, I am quite sure that 
he was not bleeding at the fetlock. I did not observe that the 
skin had been cut under the fetlock joint. 
Re-examined. — I rode the horse most part of the way, at 
about three miles and three quarters an hour, back. It appeared 
to me that they had been trying to bring the splint down ; they 
sometimes do it by beating it with a small hammer when it first 
grows ; or by blistering, which leaves a scab for a short time. 
Philip Fry. —I am a veterinary surgeon, living at Torrington, 
where 1 have practised these two years. I studied at the Veteri¬ 
nary College. 1 had been an amateur some years, and used to look 
after my own and my neighbours’ horses. I was called in on the 
31st of July to see the horse. I examined the off-fore leg, and ob¬ 
served that there was a thickening of the skin from the knee to 
the fetlock joint j there w as also a cicatrix on the near side of the 
leg—the appearance of an old wound healed over without any 
hair. I observed an old speedy-cut inside the knee—the sheath 
of the tendons was thickened : various causes may produce this 
—it would impede the action of the horse. On the Thursday 
following I was again called in, when the horse was delivered to 
Jacobs. The appearances were the same, but it was a little more 
swollen. It went away slightly lame—not dead lame—on the 
off-fore-leg. If the horse had met with a wound or a bruise on 
the 29th of July, it could not have produced this appearance— 
the swelling had the appearance of a strain previous to the 29th 
of July. 
Cross-examined. —I used to act as an amateur veterinary at 
Witheridge : afterwards I was at the Royal Veterinary College, 
and before that with a person at Southmolton. I w'as a student, 
and when I got my diploma I commenced practice. If the horse 
was sound on the 28th,. these appearances could not have been 
there on the 30th : there could not have been that deposit—the 
morbid thickening. I observed no flesh wound above the fetlock 
joint—there was an abrasion of the skin. The horse might be 
made useful; but I do not believe that it could ever be made sound. 
I should say the outside worth of the horse would be £10 when 
brought round. 
Re-examined. —Supposing tliere had been an old inflammation 
in that leg, it would be more like to fail there again: it might be 
