Johnstown weekly Democrat. (Johnstown, Cambria County, Pa.) 1889-1916, 1890-05-16
WARRANTlNG FIREARMS.
An Interesting Sun Showing the Respon.
sibllity of Dealer i'm Rifles.


sibllity of a Dealer in Rifles.
A sportsman aas recovered $1,000
damages from firm in London for breach
of warranty as to a rifle purchased by
the plaintiff. The case was settled in
court, after the plaintiffs case had been
opened and a certain amount of evidence
called, by the defendants submitting to a
verdict of $1,000 and costs. The result
of this compromise was that certain in
teresting issues and legal points in the
case were not threshed out. What those
points were will be seen from a sketch of
the cause of action.
The plaintiff is Mr.. f. Hallowell Carew.
gentleman on the sunny side of thirty,
and possessed of considerable private
means. He has gone in freely for sport
since attaining his majority; he has fig
ured in the pigskin between the flags,
and in 1888 he bethought himself of that
reputed sportsman's Eden, Southeast
Africa, and its resources of big game.
The defendants are Rowland Ward Sc
Co., the naturalists and taxidermists of
Piccadilly. Mr.. Carew, prior to starting
on his African trip, visited Messrs.
Wards establishment and took some les
sons in skinning animals.
In the course of conversation with Mr..
Ward he mentioned that he contemplate
ed obtaining his rifles from Hollands,
the well known gunmakers, and one of
the Ward firm thereupon volunteered to
him that they could supply him with the
weapons which he would need, of equal
quality to those which he could obtain
at Hollands, but at half the price. Mr..
Carew accordingly consented to deal
with them, and ordered from them the
rifles which they suggested for his own
use, together with the five-and.twenty
Sniders for the use of his African native
staff; he also bought his ammunition
from the defendants.
The rifles were delivered to him, the
invoice being made out in the name of
the defendants. He then took the rifles
down to Nunhead to test them as to
sighting, and on that occasion, and not
previously, according to his evidence, the
name of some third party as the manu-
facturer of them was mentioned to him
by some one speaking on behalf of de-
PENDANTS. The trial with the rifles salts
fed him; he fired from the one which
was the cause of action about ten trial
shots. He did not personally inform
himself as to the charge which he used
in the trials; but it seems that he used
ammunition supplied by the defendants,
and similar to that which he was taking
from them for his use in Africa.
In due time Mr.. Carew sailed for Zan-
zibar, and started up country, spending
about CT 900 ON his trip. Before long
one of these rifles burst in his hands,
causing him most serious injury, maim-
ing him and disfguring him more or
less for life. His left hand is perma-
nently crippled; powder has burned into
the skin of his face, and his hearing has
been impaired by the explosion His
trip was, of course, spoiled by the catas-
trophe, and the outlay upon it was
wasted. 1t appears that he had fired
the rifle which had burst some dozen
times after he reached Africa. On the
occasion of the accident it was loaded
with a cartridge supplied by defendants.
An expert examination 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,
leaving only one-sixty-fourth of an inch
of metal where there should have been
one-eighth. The explosion was due to
this defective workmanship according
to the expert evidence of Mr.. S. b. ALI
port, the celebrated gunmaker, who is
also chairman of the Birmingham proof
hoard = ondon Field