VETERINARY JURISPRUDENCE IN SCOTLAND. 483 
to favour the one side or the other. If this be a correct view 
of what such a note should be, let us compare with it the 
note appended by Sheriff Davidson to his decision of the 
case of Smith v. Rainnie, and founded on the foregoing 
evidence, and it will be seen in what measure it deserves the 
character. We will not speak disparagingly of those who 
have the onerous duty of administering the laws. With the 
best possible intentions, they are often misled by the form 
in which a case may be represented to them, or from per¬ 
sonal ignorance of the subject to be decided upon, and hence 
deserve a measure of support even when their decisions do 
not fully satisfy. But when a judge overlooks so far as even 
to misstate well attested facts, it is no longer charitable for¬ 
bearance, but a plain abnegation of such right to remain 
passive. Far be it from us to apply these remarks to the 
judge whose decision we are about to canvass, unless it 
appear that his own words, compared with the written 
evidence before him, justify the conclusion. If the cap fit, 
who is to blame ? 
Note by Sheriff Davidson in the cause Smith v. Rainnie. 
The pursuer has not proved the cause of death. Instead 
of intimating the cow’s death to the defender, and requesting 
his presence at a dissection of the body; and even instead of 
sending for competent persons to make the dissection, who 
could afterwards be examined as witnesses, he chose to per¬ 
form the operation himself, and alone. The farriers who 
examined the heart and abscess never saw the body, and 
therefore there is no proof that that abscess was really the 
cause of death. Thus the pursuer has failed to establish 
one of the main facts libelled. But supposing the abscess 
was the cause of death, has the pursuer proved that this 
abscess was in existence and latent at the time of the sale. 
The pursuer’s case has derived considerable aid from the 
defender not only leading no proof himself, but even absent¬ 
ing himself during the pursuer’s proof; and not cross- 
examining his witnesses, for which there was ample scope. 
And so it may be said that the evidence adduced by the pur¬ 
suer stands uncontradicted; still the defender denies the libel, 
and it is incumbent on the pursuer to make out his case. 
The Sheriff, on a careful consideration of the proof, has 
come to be of opinion that the pursuer has not doue so in a 
satisfactory manner. 
When the animal was bought on the 16th of December, 1848, 
it was apparently in good health. Its leanness was no proof 
