Warranting Firearms

A sportsman has recovered L1,000 damages f rom a flrm in London f or breach of warranty ast a rifle purcbased by the -plaintiff. The case was settled in court, after the plaintiffs case had beeu opened and a certain ainountof evidence called, by the defendants submitting toa verdict of L1,000 and costs. The result of tliis compromise was that certain interesting issues and legal points in the case were not threshed out. What those points were will be seen f rom a sketch of the cause of action. The plaintiff is Mr. F. Hallowell Carew, a gentleman on the Bunny side of thirty, and possessed of considerable private means. He has gone in freely for sport since attaining his majority; he has figured iu the pigskin between the flags, and in 1888 he bethought himself of that reputed sportsman's Eden, Southeaet África, and its resources of big game. The defendants are Rowland Ward & Co., the naturalists and taxidermista of Piccadilly. Mr. Carew, prior to starting on his African trip, Tisited Messrs. Ward's establishment and took some lessons in skinning animáis. In the course of conversation with Mr. Ward he mentioned that he contemplated obtaining his rifles froni Holland's, the well known gunmakers, and one of the Ward firm thereupon volunteered to him that they could eupply him with the weapons whioh he would need, of equal quality to those whioh he could obtain at Hoiland's, but at half the price. Mr. Carew accordingly oonsented to deal with them, and ordered from them the rifles which they sugs:ested for hi3 own use, together with the five-and-twenty Sniders f or the use of his Af rican native staff; he also bought his ammunition frota the defendants. The rifles were delivered to him, the invoice being made out in the name of the defendants. He then took the rifle down to Nunhead to test them aa to sighting, and on that occasion, and not previously, accordingto his evidence, the name of some third party as the rnanufacturer of them was mentioned to him by some one speaking on behalf of defendants. The trial with the rifles satisfied him; he fired f rom the one which was the cause of action about ten trial shots. He did not personally inform hiniself as to the charge which he used in the trials; but it seems that he used arnmunition supplied by the defendants, and similar to that which he was taking from them for his use in África. In due time Mr. Oarew sailed for Zanlibar, and started up country, spending about L1,000 on his trip. Bef ore long one of these rifles burst in his hands, causing him inost serious injury, ïnaiming him and dis-figuring him more or less for life. His left hand is permanently crippled; powder has burned into the skin of his face, and his hearing haa been impaired by the explosión. His trip was, of course, spoiled by the catastrophe, and the outlay upon it was wasted. It appears that he had fired the rifle which had burst souie dozen times after he reached África. On the occasion of the accident it was loaded with a cartridge supplied by defendants. An expert exaniination of the burst rifle disclosed the cause of its weakness. The hole for the extractor pin had been in the first instance bored into the wall of the barrel. The workman had then plugged the hole with steel wire and had rebored the hole. The effect of this boring had been to make the barrel defective in strength, eaving only one-sixty-fourth of an inch of metal where there should have been one-eighth. The explosión was due to this defectiye workinanship, according to the expert evidence of Mr. S. B. Allport, the celebrated gunniaker, who is also chairman of the Birmingham proof board.-