442 
REPORTS OF HORSE CAUSES. 
crastinate no longer; as I had reserved by me, but was too lazy 
to send it, a full and, to the best of my belief, an accurate narra¬ 
tive of the whole of the evidence and pleas in that interesting 
case. The Times' report, though free from any serious error, is 
nevertheless so jejune, so bald and uninstructive, that I trust you 
will not refuse to repeat in detail what in your last was too com¬ 
pendiously chronicled. I fully concur with Judex, in your June 
Number, as to the slovenly and imperfect manner in which trials 
of this sort are reported, and lament that no sources are open to 
you of securing more precise accounts of them. The provincial 
papers, either of the neighbourhood where a cause is tried or of 
that where the parties to it reside, commonly exhibit more at large 
the specialties of all manner of suits whose interests are only local 
or their scope circumscribed, than do the metropolitan journals; and 
I would suggest that, on a topic which more peculiarly concerns the 
veterinary profession, one of its members—and doubtless there is 
one in every assize town—should make a point of transmitting to 
you a copy of that county paper which furnishes the most minute 
and circumstantial record of such trials. A considerate perusal of 
the trial in question, as reported in the Hereford Times, coupled 
with the lessons inculcated by the uniform issues of almost every 
horse cause that has fallen under my notice, gave rise to the fol¬ 
lowing reflections:—That it is highly impolitic in the breeder to 
warrant any horse sold to a dealer for a sum approaching its full 
value, but that he should submit to any sacrifice of price rather 
than incur the risk of litigation; where the chances of establishing 
his own and his horses’ integrity in the eyes, it may be, of a parcel 
of tailors, are so notoriously adverse to the vendor, that the testi¬ 
mony of men whose names have conferred a dignity on their pro¬ 
fession to which it could not otherwise have attained—men who 
rescued it from the opprobrium of quackery and empiricism, who 
have bestowed on it a literature which at once elevates themselves 
to the position of gentlemen and scholars (and in one instance, at 
least, I refer to the gentle and amiable Youatt, illustrates a rare 
association of the most estimable qualities in a surgeon—energetic 
practice combined with compassionate humanity—graphic symp¬ 
tomatology with severest truth), and gives to the science they pur¬ 
sue co-ordinate rank with the other liberal professions; that the 
evidence, I say, of these ornaments of their calling is, by the sworn 
twelve, put on a par with, nay, postponed to the big-mouthed 
vapouring and malicious detraction that evermore characterize its 
obscurest and most ignorant members. 
Leominster, 14th July, 1849. 
I remain, 
Your’s faithfully. 
