Page 3 Advertisements Column 1

King Country Chronicle, Volume I, Issue 33, 7 June 1907, Page 3

Mr S. S. Cameron, the cnief veterinary officer of the Victorian Department of Agriculture, has discovered from observations recently made at sales in different parts of the country thai honesty has not yet become a prominent feature in horse-dealing, and he thinks something should _be done to protect buyers from being misled by the misrepresentations of sellers, which are accepted by the auctioneers. To emphasise his point.Mr Cameron says he recently saw three horses sold in the ring, two for £35 each and one for £4O. They were described as six, seven and eight years old respectively, the auctioneer giving the ages on the word of the seller. Mr Cameron subsequently inspected the horses, and found that they were each over fifteen years old. There is some difficulty, Mr Cameron says, in protecting the buyer who does not look after himself, because the conditions of sale read out prior to the sale, when signed apparently constitute a contract, and override verbal misrepresentations made during the currency of the sale. He has, however, been advised that a purchaser if he could show that such incorrect representations led him to make the purchasing bid, whether they were by the owner or the auctioneer, could have the sale declared void. It would be well, he says, if some victim would take action in that direction. The difficulty was, he admitted, that men who bought horses did not like to admit that they had got the worst of the bargain, and would generally prefer to use the horse or sell it again than advertise the fact. - %