Another precaution, rarely taken, but of great importance, is to send a servant to fetch the horse: the purchaser generally rides him away himself, if he can borrow a saddle. Should an accident occur on the journey home, he has no witness to prove the cause of it, and a squabble of course arises. He is challenged with careless riding-he cannot disprove the charge, and the remedy on the warranty is involved in the always complicated question, "Who is in fault?" For the same reason it is prudent for the first week, if possible, always to ride him in company; or, at all events, to make the groom carefully note down the length of every ride, and the condition in which the horse is brought home. Every sin that the animal can commit is thrown upon the rider's back, whenever a horse is returned to a dealer on his warranty. Inquiry should always be made of the seller, how he has been accustomed to diet and clothe his horse; whether his feet are stopped at night, and how frequently; and whatever reply he gives should be carefully noted, and the same treatment observed, till his soundness is ascertained beyond dispute. These points seem trivial and superfluous. The moment, however, the buyer consults his attorney, he will cross-examine him on every item, and then their practical importance in re

ference to the warranty is ascertained, though, generally, too late! It is desirable, before money is paid, to put some general questions as to the history of the horse-not so much to ascertain that he is not stolen property, though even that suspicion is not always to be laid aside, but to secure the means of tracing any disease that may show itself in the buyer's stables. It is a strange fact, but not less true than strange, if dealers are to be credited, that no horse is ever ill, before he is transferred by sale! The first appearance of every disorder with which veterinarians are familiar, is the second or third day after the animal is comfortably housed in a new stable. Now, after making the most liberal allowances for change of domicile, I cannot understand this horse-dealing system of pathology; and so far am I from being convinced of its being sound in principle, that I have always provided myself with the means of following up my horse's history. Sometimes I have discovered that even in this trifling matter, the inveterate habit of lying has betrayed itself. But deception here is of little moment: it tells as well with a jury, that the previous history of the animal has been studiously concealed, as if the last year of his existence had been spent at the college; and this is all that is wanted. I may also observe that actual deception

on any material point, invalidates a contract altogether. Thus, to sell a horse that has lost the mark, under a false representation of his age, or to sell a second-hand carriage, as one that has just left the coachmaker's loft, is fraudulent, and no action can be maintained for the price; or should the price have been paid, it may be recovered back. Dealers ought to be better aware of this principle of law, than for the most part they appear to be. No legal contract can be founded upon fraud, and wilful deception amounts in law to fraud. The maxim of Caveat emptor, which I have chosen for my title, cannot safely be pushed too far.

I HAVE written to little purpose, if my reader should ever require advice to guide him in reference to his warranty: but my work would be incomplete without it, and with it he may save himself many a six-and-eightpence, if he is after all so unfortunate as to be taken in.

Every man I believe is pleased with a new horse for the first four and twenty hours, on the same principle that every child is pleased with a new toy; and like the child who throws away the toy the moment it fails to answer expectation, the buyer believes his purchase to be worthless, the instant he detects a fault. This is a serious mistake. There is not one horse in a hundred that is

in every sense sound. There is an important distinction between soundness, in its legal sense, and in its popular acceptation A lawyer will tell you

that every horse is sound that is not diseased, or menaced with disease, to a degree that incapacitates him for fair and serviceable exertion in that labour for which he is sold. A veterinary surgeon will declare a horse unsound, that has any symptoms of past, present, or future infirmity. A dealer, or his ostler, will vouch for the soundness of every animal that can place one foot before the other, or manage to stand upon all four. Between these high authorities, especially if his attorney has an eye to costs rather than character, the unlucky purchaser is bewildered, and, like all men in that predicament, commits one blunder that leads to a second, till he is lost in a labyrinth of squabbling, litigation, and expense: consoling himself eventually with the comfortable conviction that all lawyers, farriers, and dealers, are rogues alike; beleaguered together to swindle him out of his money, and make dupes of honest men! The proportion of knaves among them is large certainly: but very little reflection will satisfy a reasonable man, that in most cases he can only have himself to blame.

My first advice is not to be too prompt in returning a defective horse. Slight faults, or even doubtful indications of disease, should not be conclusive. No horse is without a fault of some