WARRANTY
—is the personal assurance the purchaser of a horse receives from the seller, at the moment of terminating the bargain, if such purchase absolutely takes place, that the horse in question is no more than a certain number of years old, (as the case may be;) that he is perfectly free from every kind of vice, blemish, and defect; that he is completely sound, "wind and limb"; or, in other words, that he is in a state of perfection. Much professional jargon has transpired during the last half of a century in the courts of legal litigation upon this subject: and a great law authority who presided once (rather inadvertently, it is supposed) presumed to declare in open court, "that paying 20l. for a horse, was a price sufficient to have the SOUNDNESS implied by the sum paid, and that he should consider the warranty to extend to full three months from the day of purchase." Whether this assertion was merely a lapse of the tongue, or a temporary deviation from sagacity and discretion, is not now worthy disquisition; as it must certainly be admitted to have been one of the most absurd, unequitable and ridiculous opinions ever promulgated in a court of judicial investigation.
In confirmation of which, let it be supposed, that a horse is sold by either gentleman or dealer, known and declared to be bona fide sound at the moment of transfer, and absolutely never to have been otherways; in equity, and in justice, what can the late owner of such horse have to do with his state of futurity? Is not a horse of this description, though sound and perfect, as likely to become diseased, to fall lame, or even to die, on that, or the following day, as at any other period of his life? Where then can be found the consistency, the equity, or, indeed, the common honesty, of requiring or expecting any man to warrant for weeks, or months, what it is not within his power to insure for a single hour? The equitable intent of a warranty, between persons of mutual good intent and integrity, cannot be reasonably expected to go beyond the hour of purchase and sale; for as neither can explore, with certainty, the abstruse pages of the great volume of time yet to come, there cannot be the least plea for a retrospective compensation. See "Law Suits," and "Soundness."