556 
VETERINARY JURISPRUDENCE. 
Subsequently, however, Mr. Gould told the plaintiff that the horse had 
this seedy toe, and plaintiff wrote to the defendant informing him of 
the fact, who, having inquired into the matter, replied that he had no 
reason to suppose or suspect that the animal was unsound. The 
correspondence went on, and no arrangement could be made, although 
plaintiff offered to submit the case to arbitration. Plaintiff offered to 
sell the horse for £40, or to keep it on condition that defendant would 
refund £10 of the purchase money. This offer was likewise refused, 
and the animal was examined by several other persons, all of whom 
pronounced him to have a seedy toe. Defendant wrote to the plaintiff, 
saying he regretted the animal did not suit him ; he had bought it of Mr. 
Barnes only two years ago, and had given him £120 for it. At the same 
time he could not admit that the animal was unsound. Notice was then 
sent to defendant that the horse would be sold, and it was accordingly 
sold by auction for £29, but the net sum received by the plaintiff was 
only £26 Is. 6d. This action was now brought to recover the differ¬ 
ence. The plaintiff did not impute for a moment that Mr. Siinonds had 
the slightest idea that the horse was unsound at the time he sold it; for 
the seedy toe was a disease which could not be discovered by superficial 
observation in its incipient state. 
The evidence of Messrs. George Gould, farrier, Southampton; Charles 
Spooner, M.K.C.V.S. (author of a work on the ‘ Foot of the Horse ’); and 
John Barford, also a member of the Royal College of Veterinary 
Surgeons, demonstrated quite clearly that the horse had a“ seedy toe ” 
on the off' fore foot for some months previous to the sale. Gould and 
Barford stated that he had slight corns on both fore feet. The witnesses 
further stated that unprofessional men could not detect the disease, and 
that a farrier might shoe the horse for some time without finding it out. 
The disease was first of all perhaps two inches up the foot, and the 
horse might have the disease some time without going lame. It might 
be produced by a prick or bruise in shoeing, or by gravel getting under 
the shoe, and from other causes. The prick would make the horse go 
lame in a short time, but the seedy toe would come gradually. 
Mr. R. IV. Siinonds said his client had felt it to be his duty to defend 
this action, as the letter written by the plaintiff to him in the first 
instance took him by surprise, and defendant felt that the offer of £10 
to settle the matter might be misrepresented as an acceptance of money 
by plaintiff to hush the case up. He now wished the whole matter to be 
fully investigated by the Court. Defendant inquired of his blacksmith, 
servants, and others, to ascertain if there was any unsoundness, and he 
was persuaded that when the horse was sold he was perfectly sound. 
No doubt there was something the matter with him when the witnesses 
for the plaintiff examined him, but this must have been caused after 
the sale. The horse did not go lame for the whole eighteen months or 
two years that defendant kept him, and his blacksmith would show that 
the horse was perfectly sound and that there was no appearance of lame¬ 
ness at all prior to the sale. He (Mr. Siinonds) would call several other 
witnesses who would state that the horse was sound, had no lameness, and 
was a quiet and good-tempered horse, which never shied at all. The 
injury to the foot had no doubt been caused by shoeing, and might have 
been done by the very blacksmith who first shod him at Southampton, 
and had been called as a witness for the plaintiff that day. If the 
seedy toe ” had been in existence for nine months, as stated in the 
evidence for the plaintiff, it must have been detected bv the blacksmith 
before. 
Mr. Cox, blacksmith ; Henry Hutchings, his foreman ; Henry Judd, 
