Excerpt from Advice to Purchasers of Horses: Being a Short and Familiar Treatise on the External Conformation of the Horse; The Nature of Soundness Unsoundness; And the Laws Relating to Sale and Warranty; With Copious Directions for Discovering Unsoundnesses Prior to Purchasing There is no species of traffic in which the purchaser runs greater risk, exposes himself to more imposition, and experiences more disappointment, than in that of horse-dealing. There is none in which so little confidence is placed in the seller; and, generally speak ing, there is none in which greater ignorance is displayed by both, in judging of the sound ness of the commodity. The buyer inquires is the horse sound? The seller replies warranted sound, and makes himself re Sponsible for it by giving a written certificate. AS the word sound forms such an important part of the contract, we might expect that its meaning would be weli' defined, and clearly understood in the same sense by both parties. But no such thing; on.the contrary, not twoout of an hundred attach the same meaning to it. One says, a horse is sound when free from lameness another enumerates a certain number of diseases, such as spavin, broken wind, glanders, 81s, the existence of any of which makes a horse, in his opinion, unfit to be warranted, but no two agree as to the kind, or number of diseases. Hence arise misconception, litigation, suspicion of knavery, and the low estimation in which the dealer is too generally held. Many people 'are not aware while they vilify the dealer for palm ing an unsound horse upon them, that it is quite possible he knew nothing about the unsoundness. It is only under certain cir cumstances that he can know more of the horse than the purchaser (if a horseman) would, after possessing him the same length of time. For the truth is, the majority of men embark in horse-dealing with Scarcely a qualification requisite for conducting it, with profit to themselves and satisfaction to their customers. It is not enough to be a tolerable judge of a horse's Shape, to have tact in buying at a low rate, and selling at a high one. In order to select with judgment, and recommend with confidence, some knowledge of the structure and diseases of their mer chandise, Should be added to their ordinary qualifications. With such information, the dealer would be much less exposed to the mortification of having his horses returned for what he knew nothing about - his war ranty would be more valuable - he would be more trusted to, and stand higher in public estimation. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.