VETERINARY JURISPRUDENCE. 233 
plaintiff. He thought he might at the outset allude to an observation 
in which they would fully concur, and which he was sure would not be 
permitted to bias their minds against the defendant. He alluded to the 
wholesale destruction of animal life, which was in evidence before them, 
and which was the foundation of this inquiry. It was so wholesale a 
destruction of animal life that one could not hear the narrative of it 
without a certain shock to the feelings; and that shock might, unless 
the judgment be guarded by those who had to determine between the 
plaintiff and defendant, have a tendency to disturb the feelings, and to 
bring the judgment to a conclusion that would not be well founded on 
the facts. The question being what caused these numerous deaths, 
and it lying upon the plaintiff to satisfy them beyond a reasonable 
doubt that it was a breach of contract on the part of the defendant that 
led to the calamitous result, he should ask them, and not in vain, to 
apply their minds earnestly and dispassionately to the consideration of 
the evidence, and not to assume that because the sheep died in these 
numbers, and died recently after the application of this wash, the 
defendant was responsible, and that the plaintiff was entitled to their 
verdict. His learned friend had put his case very ingeniously; but he 
(Mr. Atherton) thought a fallacy lurked in his proposition. He was 
inclined to decry the application of science, and, as it seemed to him, 
the evidence of scientific men to the elucidation of the facts of this case. 
He thought they would be of opinion, when the evidence as he (Mr. 
Atherton) would venture to open it should be before them, that the 
sort of shadowy or prima facie case which might be made out in the 
way his learned friend had presented it, had been entirely answered, 
and that it was impossible, without shutting their eyes to facts which 
would admit of no doubt, to arrive at a conclusion that the plaintiff 
had done that which he was bound to do, made it clear, beyond a 
reasonable doubt, that the calamity which undoubtedly had taken 
place was attributable to breach of contract on the part of the defendant. 
Let them then consider, which was a very important matter, what the 
bargain or contract was, propounded by the plaintiff himself, and of 
the breach of which he complained. He would take it in the terms in 
which it was stated on behalf of the plaintiff, that the sheep-dipping 
composition was not reasonably fit and proper for the purpose of 
dipping sheep, if used according to the printed directions. This was 
of great importance, and could not receive too much attention at their 
hands in dealing with this contract as a matter of bargain. They 
would observe that the defendant, Mr. Elliott, did not assume—nor was 
it comprehended—that he took upon himself the character of absolute 
warranter or insurer. He did not say that in the use of his sheep- 
wash, used according to the directions, there was no danger. What he 
promised or undertook was that the ingredients compounded and used 
according to the printed instructions were “reasonable”—that was to 
say, under ordinary conditions and in a general way—for the use to 
which the defendant contemplated they would be turned. The pur¬ 
chase of these powders took place on the 7th of August, last year; and 
his learned friend would not deny that the contract—whatever it ought 
to have been—was then and there, at that very instant of time, com¬ 
plete. They would hear the extent to which for years these powders 
had been used precisely according to those printed directions, without 
the smallest injury to a single sheep, the defendant having compounded 
and vended these very powders for the last ten or a dozen years. They 
had heard one of the purchasers of those very powders—a person of 
the name of Davidson—called on the part of the plaintiff, and he would 
