VETERINARY JURISPRUDENCE. 
181 
Mr. Edwin James, Q.C., Mr. Needham, and Mr. Allen, appeared for 
the plaintiff; and Mr. Sergeant Ballantine and Mr. Brett for the 
defendant. 
The action was brought by the plaintiff. Major Durie, of Broxholme 
Park, Herts, against the defendant, Mr. Hopwood, for a breach of 
warranty on two horses, one a blood horse and the other a carriage 
horse, sold by the defendant to the plaintiff on the 16th of October last. 
It appeared from the evidence for the plaintiff that the horses were 
bought at Liverpool for £131 10 s., with a written warranty that they 
were both four years old and perfectly sound. The plaintiff look them 
home, and his wife tried them and did not much like them, and the 
plaintiff therefore proposed to sell them to a dealer named Clough. 
Clough examined them, and expressed some doubt about the soundness 
of each, and he therefore said before he could deal he must have them 
examined by Mr. Mavor, who certified that they had each a bone 
spavin on the off hock. The plaintiff thereupon applied to the 
defendant to take back the horses, but he refused. He then submitted 
them to the examination of Professor Spooner, Mr. Varnell, and Mr. 
Field, all distinguished veterinary surgeons, and all of whom pronounced 
the horses as suffering from chronic bone spavin of the off hock, and 
that it was a permanent unsoundness. The horses were then sent to 
Liverpool, and the defendant, having examined them, remained of 
opinion that they were both sound. There they were examined by Mr. 
Lucas, Mr. Ellis, and Mr. Bretherton, veterinary surgeons of great 
reputation at Liverpool, and by them pronounced to be perfectly sound, 
Mr. Ellis certifying, however, that there was a deposit of bone on the 
shankbone of the off hind leg of the carriage horse, but which did not 
interfere with the action, and was a mere blemish, and not unsoundness. 
The horses, having been refused to be taken back, were sent to 
Tattersall’s, and sold for £57 10s., having been bought by the defendant. 
The present action was brought to recover the difference and the 
expenses. For the defence, it appeared that the defendant bought the 
horses at Ballinasloe fair, in Ireland. He had been a dealer for seventeen 
years, and took particular care in the purchase because he bought them 
in Ireland. He was satisfied of their soundness, and bought them for 
£80. After buying them back at Tattersall’s he sold the carriage horse 
to a clergyman named Buchanan, in Staffordshire, and the other to a 
young lady for a riding horse, getting £70 for one and £65 for the other. 
He mentioned to the purchasers the bother there was about them, and 
Mr. Kettle, a country veterinary surgeon, examined one for the purchaser, 
and Mr. Payne, of Market Drayton, a veterinary surgeon, examined the 
other for the purchaser, and pronounced each horse to be sound. Since 
the purchase both purchasers were exceedingly satisfied with the horses. 
The trainer of the blood horse, who trained him to carry a lady, pro. 
nounced him to be sound, and not at all lame. The coachman of the 
Rev. Mr. Buchanan had been allowed by that gentleman to bring the 
carriage horse up to town to be inspected, and he was brought round to 
the door of the court and inspected by the jury, and, at their request, 
by Mr. Ellis, veterinary surgeon, of Liverpool, who attended for the 
defendant, and Mr. Mavor, veterinary surgeon, of London, for the 
plaintiff. The coachman pronounced the horse to be a splendid one, 
and said his master set great value on him ; that he had frequently driven 
him at the rate of twelve miles an hour, and that he was perfectly sound, 
and not lame in the slightest degree. After the horse had been in¬ 
spected, Mr. Lucas, of the repository at Liverpool, twenty-five years a 
veterinary surgeon in that town, and of great experience, repeated his 
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