Alfred Henry Lionel Leach, C.J.

1. The appellant sued on the Original Side of this Court to recover a sum of Rs. 7,920 claimed as damages for breach of contract. The appellant also asked for an order directing specific performance of part of the contract and put his claim for damages hare in the alternative. The nature of the contract, however, precludes any decree for specific performance being granted and the claim for damages alone calls for consideration. Mr. Justice Gentle who tried the suit came to the conclusion that there had been no breach of the contract by the respondents, but the appellant himself had broken it.

2. The contract is partly type-written and partly printed and is dated the 5th July, 1939. A printed form commonly used by the respondents, who are a firm of merchants carrying on business in Madras was used, but the main provisions were inserted by means of a type-writer at the beginning of the document. By the type-written portion, the appellant agreed to buy and the respondents agreed to sell sixty bottles of quicksilver, each bottle to contain 34.5 kilograms net. The quicksilver had to be obtained from Italy and it was stipulated that there should be a