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ON THE LAWS OF WARRANTY. 
By D. B. Howell, Reading. 
As the question of the proper education of the veterinary 
surgeon is placed in the hands of men well qualified to discuss 
the matter in its various phases, I beg to call the attention 
of the profession to a subject not only affecting the pupil in 
his studies, but also the practitioner in his practice, viz. the 
law of warranty.” At the Congress held in London in 1867, 
the late Mr. W. Litt read an admirable paper on the subject, 
the merits of which were well discussed immediately after¬ 
wards, and a committee proposed to be formed; yet at tlie 
time nothing was done, and the proposition still remains 
unfulfilled; as Mr. Litt has passed from things temporal 
to things eternal, I, without further preface, re-open the 
subject, as one not only interesting to veterinary surgeons 
in particular, but to every person possessing a horse. The old 
saying that every statute law is sufficiently wide to drive a 
coach and six through is certainly applicable to the law 
before us, because if it be correct in its various clauses, why 
is it the different judges decide in almost opposite opinions? 
Doctors differ, veterinarians differ, and, as a necessity, lawyers 
must. Why is it that we seldom or never see a horse case 
reported without the remark, with the usual amount of 
hard swearing on both sides,” or words to the same effect ? 
Whether the phrase may be considered only a portion of the 
stock-in-trade of a reporter or the real truth, I leave to others 
to decide, yet until this is altered we shall never be respected 
as a profession; although for my own part I have a better 
opinion of the members as a body, than to think this hard 
swearing arises from an inclination, to use a mild term, to 
favour their own clients, but rather from really not knowing 
what is legal and what non-legal, as in the absence of such 
knowledge each practitioner adopts his own notions, be they 
right or wrong, in addition to which the majority of the 
great horse cases are tried in London, before a jury mostly or 
wholly composed of men whose real knowledge of horses does 
not extend beyond seeing them work in cabs or omnibuses. 
Shrewd barristers soon see what material composes the jury, 
and mixing up legal terms with high sounding veterinary 
ones, and the usual appeal to their understanding as men of 
sense, drive out what little knowledge they possessed, and 
each party using the same tactics to make black appear 
