VETERINARY MEDICAL JURISPRUDENCE. 
171 
cannot perform the digestive process so perfectly as that which 
is enabled to contract upon its contents; and there must, to a 
certain extent, be a deficiency of nutriment, and a proportional 
diminution of strength and condition. Many crib-biters are ex¬ 
cellent horses. They are said to be idle, lively, spirited animals. 
Almost all of them may be capable of ordinary work, and many 
of them of extraordinary work; but the question is, are they so 
capable of work as they would have been without this strange 
habit? and are they not, in consequence of this habit, more lia¬ 
ble to cholic, and that of an obstinate and dangerous nature, 
than they would otherwise have been? Crib-biting, therefore, 
mav fairly be considered as unsoundness, as it interferes, or is 
likely to do so, with the value and use of the animal; and a 
sad door for litigation would be left open if the decision turned 
on the degree, and not the existence of the habit. We con¬ 
fess we think that the jury determined rightly; and Lord Ten- 
terden was of the same opinion, when he said, “ Gentlemen, I 
think you have returned a proper verdict.” 
The second trial, likewise, settled another point, if it did or 
could need to be settled,—that a horse that has been lame, and, 
although he is afterwards perfectly free from lameness, retains 
an alteration of structure, the consequence of disease, and of that 
nature that, with hard w ork, he will possibly again become lame, 
must be an unsound horse. 
On the evidence of some of the witnesses, and the contrariety 
of opinion here, and in a thousand other instances, expressed be¬ 
tween those who teach in the same school and lecture to the 
1 1 • \ _ 
same tdass, we are unwilling to comment. These things, how¬ 
ever, should not so be. 
The letter of Mr. Charles Clark is on a very important subject, 
as it regards the comfort and the honesty with which the shoe¬ 
ing department of our business is conducted. Our smiths and 
our forges are too often sad nuisances to us. It is, perhaps, 
because we make up our minds that we must be subject to this 
annoyance, that we exercise so little circumspection in the hir¬ 
ing oi our forge-men. We are careful that our employers shall 
