56 
VETERINARY JURISPRUDENCE. 
ment made the evidence admissible in criminal law, but he doubted 
whether any law permitted the evidence to be read in the present case. 
Mr. Edlin said that Mr. Jones had an opportunity of cross-examining 
on the last occasion, and strongly urged that if a witness died before a 
new trial the evidence given on a former trial might be read. He (Mr. 
Edlin) was quite satisfied on the point, though he was not armed with 
authorities in support of his view. 
His Honour , after referring to the law bearing on the subject, said 
all the authorities were in Mr. Edlin’s favour, though he thought it a 
piece of bad law. The learned judge then read the evidence, which we 
gave in our report of the former trial, wherein it will be remembered 
Mr. Limbrick distinctly stated that in his opinion the horse in question 
was unsound in both fore feet from ossified cartilages. 
This being the whole of the plaintiff’s case, Mr. Jones proceeded to 
address the Court in an eloquent and forcible speech. The case, 
he said, resolved itself into two points—soundness and vice—and 
he should consult his own convenience as well as that of the jury by 
taking them separately. After complaining of ttie hardship which had 
been inflicted on his client in the present proceedings, he begged the 
jury to look with the greatest caution upon the evidence of the vete¬ 
rinary witnesses. Not a single witness agreed with each other, and 
where, he asked, was Mr. Barker, who was produced by the plaintiff on 
the last occasion? Mr. Barker then stated that there were no side- 
bones, and he (Mr. Jones) called upon the jury to infer from his absence 
that the plaintiff knew his evidence would be against him. The witness 
Mr. Kent was a most unfortunate man. The alterations which were made 
in the horse cured it of the five or six diseases which Mr. Kent had de¬ 
scribed, and made Mr. Kent more impartial in his certificate at Bristol 
than at Corsham. He therefore claimed Kent as his best witness. Mr. 
Leigh also stood wholly unsupported, and could hardly And out the 
same disease as Mr. Kent. Mr. Brown, too, had found out a disease which 
none of the others could discover; and he believed that if Mr. Brown had 
come into court an unbiassed and impartial witness, he would have 
given a certificate of soundness. Mr. Brown had stated that convexity 
of the foot arose from disease. Now he (Mr. Jones) would be able to 
show that the horse was foaled like it, and that the formation of the 
foot was always the same. As to the alleged shying, there was only the 
evidence of the plaintiff and Mr. Bailey, and he would ask the jury 
whether either of them ever possessed a horse that did not shy ; but 
unless they were satisfied that the horse was habitually a shier, it would 
amount to nothing. If every man were to return a horse because it 
shied, the turnpike-road would be worn out with returned horses; and 
he submitted that the jury must have the strongest possible evidence of 
vice to return this horse on his client’s hands. After some further 
remarks, and narrating the evidence which he should produce before 
them, and which would prove beyond all doubt that the horse was not 
only sound but perfectly free from vice, Mr. Jones concluded by stating 
that he never relied so firmly on a verdict as in the present case. The 
first witness called for the defence was— 
Benjamin Curtis, the defendant, who, on being examined by Mr. 
Jones, stated as follows—I am a horse-dealer, and live at Hullavington. 
I exchanged another horse for the horse in question of Mr. Rumming. 
On the 31st March last the plaintiff came to my house, to buy this par¬ 
ticular horse. He saw the horse run up and down, and said he liked him 
very well, and should like him put in harness. I put the horse in a 
gig, and told my man to drive where they liked. Plaintiff and the man 
