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ENGLAND'S HORSES 
 
 PEA,CE AND WAR. 
 
ENGLAND'S HOESES, 
 
 FOR 
 
 PEACE AND WAR, 
 
 Their Origin, Improvement, and Scarcity. 
 
 VEKE D. DE VEEE HUNT, 
 
 Author of "The Horse axd His Master," Jjc, kc. 
 
 NORTH TIPPERARY" AND " SHAMROCK " OF BELL'S LIFE. 
 
 " There are times when -sve are diverted fi-om errors, 
 but could not be preached out of them." 
 
 Stephen Montague. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 BEMROSE AND SONS, 10, PATERNOSTER BUILDINGS 
 
 AND IRONGxVTE, DERBY. 
 
 1874. 
 
 Riglit of Translation reserved by the Author. 
 
■s 
 ^1 
 
TO THE COMMON SENSE 
 
 THE GREAT BRITISH PEOPLE 
 
 THIS LITTLE WORK IS 
 
 HOPEFULLY DEDICATED BY 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 
 BoscoBEL House, 
 
 Regent's Park, 
 
 London, N.W. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 When a man finds himself, from any reason, the exponent 
 of an honest and meritorious cause, he need not be choice 
 of words, nor punctilious of demeanour in urging it. 
 Nevertheless, the Author feels all the difficulties that 
 beset this his present effort in its handling. Fearful that 
 enthusiasm in his task might engender a style bordering 
 upon the didactic (so offensive to most readers on equine 
 subjects), and, apprehensive that a less vigorous style of 
 writing might suggest weakness, he has thrown to the 
 winds everything like anticipation of what would be 
 thought of his production in any sense but that of 
 practical utility. And, with this slight explanation, he 
 respectfully and earnestly commends the common sense 
 wisdom of the principles he advocates and upholds to 
 the Nation, at a specially exigent period, for its con- 
 sideration. 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 
 Boscobel House, 
 
 Begent's Park, 
 
 London, N.W. 
 
ENGLAND'S HORSES, 
 
 PEACE AND WAR. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 So much has been said and written, if little has been done, 
 regarding our general horses, their propagation, improve- 
 ment, culture, supply, insufficiency, and dearness ; to which 
 catalogue we ought to append an alleged decadence, that 
 the subject has fairly passed through that amount of excit- 
 ing ventilation and publicity which leads to popularity in 
 the public mind. 
 
 Writers of varied classes of opinions have dealt w'ith 
 it through works of standard literature, and the medium 
 of the press and periodicals. Men capable of handling 
 it in its varied ramifications and details have devoted 
 energy and ability to exhaustive essays for the last 
 quarter of a century on the subject of our general and 
 military horse supply. From such utilitarian and highly 
 commendable efforts, we have at length aroused the 
 consideration of the great and powerful, without, up to 
 the present, any result beyond that of incontestable 
 practical confirmation of the warnings of writers on the 
 subject. 
 
2 ENGLAND S HORSES, 
 
 The Royal Commission granted upon Lord Rosebery's 
 motion in the House of Lords, have discovered, with 
 mathematical accuracy, the inadequacy of supply to our 
 demand; but, unfortunately, nothing has been yet done, 
 or suggested, to rectify so alarming and inconvenient a 
 state of things. 
 
 Observations at such a juncture, submitted for public 
 consideration and appreciation, will be rigorously expected 
 to have their base, at any rate, in sound and rational 
 premises. For this is a subject of importance so over- 
 whelming as to embrace considerations of the maintenance 
 of our national supremacy in the future ; and that is 
 sufficiently absorbing "to all patriotic Britons to sharpen 
 their interest and curtail their patience. Something 
 capable of being shaped into practically successful re- 
 sults is what the public now seeks, and anything short of 
 this would be regarded with disfavour. Nor is this state 
 of feeling to be wondered at in the days we have fallen 
 upon, when the most strenuous eflbrts of the constituted 
 officers fail to keep our cavalry and artillery strength in 
 horses up to a 'peace footing ! At the time, too, when a 
 recent enquiry, with all the aegis of Royal Warrant, failed to 
 do more than substantiate the truth of previous assertions 
 as to an alarming want of supply in our military and 
 general horse stock ; being admittedly unable to offer any 
 suggestion calculated to prove practicable and popular for 
 bringing about a cure. A Titanic and very recent war, at our 
 doors, has given to the present and future, in the pages of 
 history, powerful illustration of the value of cavalry opera- 
 tions in modern warfare. A recent French writer, too, calls 
 attention to the same consideration in a pamphlet addressed 
 to his Government, urging the necessity for increasing the 
 means for propagation of horses suited to military purposes, 
 and to the unquestionable superiority of the German 
 
FOR PEACE AND WAR. 3 
 
 cavalry, due, as lie maintains, almost entirely to the quality 
 of their chargers. And this, notwithstanding the fact that 
 France, with her three and a half millions of horses, has at 
 least a million more than Germany. The inferiority of the 
 French horses he attributes (properly, there can be no 
 physiological doubt) to the want of careful selection as 
 to sires of unquestionable attributes, as in other neighbour- 
 ing states. Prussia has two thousand stallions, or nearly so, 
 in the Government military studs, or haras ; Austria has 
 more, and all selected by one of the finest judges in 
 the world, well known and much-liked in this country 
 by all breeders and owners of high-class stock ; Hungary 
 can count as many ; while Russia has the vast number of 
 six thousand horses for re-productive purposes. And be it 
 borne in mind, that these are all animals carefully super- 
 vised by competent and duly commissioned officers capable 
 of weighing the merits and demerits of each candidate for 
 the duties of the harem. It is only by comparison we can 
 judge of anything; Government haras, under the ablest 
 supervision that careful selection can command, have been 
 found to work well in other countries, where there is not so 
 much sentimental respect paid to private enterprise when 
 national interest hangs in the balance. The French, like 
 ourselves, have discovered a rent in their armour. They 
 wisely make an attempt to repair the injury; we, with 
 characteristic insular apathy and procrastination in any- 
 thing that costs money and trouble, gravely shake our heads 
 and put our hands in our pockets, not to pull out the 
 needful for the regenerative efforts we are forced to 
 own are too sadly required, but, as a lazy fellow will do, 
 while he contemplates something requiring prompt exertion 
 that he has not the energy to tackle. But it is worse than 
 useless in so regarding this admitted national calamity ; for, 
 like the stiff fences we meet with the fox-hounds, the longer 
 
4 E^'GLANDS HORSES, 
 
 you look at them the bigger they get. Those who go at 
 them with pluck and in good form getting off much better 
 than the timid and the shirkers. 
 
 Our Gallic neighbours are considering the subject of 
 careful selection of snes and an increase in the number 
 maintained throughout that country. A proposition is 
 now before the French Assembly, that the number of 
 sires should be added to by one hundred annually, until 
 the aggregate supply doubles its present number of stud 
 horses. Considering the immense demands that the re- 
 sources of France have recently sustained in comparison 
 to those upon our plethoric exchequer, their scheme for 
 increase and imj)rovement of their military horses contrasts 
 favourably with the results of The Lord's Committee on 
 the same subject in England, which, after sitting for several 
 months and exhausting every possible channel for enquiry 
 and information on the subject exercising their research, 
 eventually decided that our supply was not by any means 
 equal to our wants, but that they could not help that, nor 
 could they suggest a feasible and popular remedy. 
 
 We have now, through the accident of change in the 
 administration, a Government in office, amongst the tra- 
 ditional repute of which is recorded strong sympathies in 
 maintaining our national power and prestige amongst the 
 nations of the earth ; and, also, to be favourable to all the 
 interests of our horses, hounds, turf, and other time- 
 honoured institutions. The sympathies of the Conserva- 
 tives, it is to be hoped, will promptly lead to the considera- 
 tion and practical treatment of a subject so popular and 
 imjjeratively important. 
 
 We cannot be said to be at peace now, and we are not at 
 war with any people where cavalry forces are required. But 
 can wx hope in the course of things to be exempted all 
 through the future from collision necessarily demanding 
 
FOR PEACE AXD WAR. 5 
 
 large cavalry aid ! Should that day come before our long 
 censurable apathy as to the efforts to prepare for it will 
 have admitted of preparation, where are we ! With Euro- 
 pean ports shut, our horse-breeding colonies too far removed 
 to aid us in horse supply at an exigent mom.ent, and, with 
 our internal resources in that way admittedly inadequate, 
 after the most minute investigation on the subject ; may 
 not every Englishman ask, with a laudable anxiety, what 
 is to become of our cavalry and artillery? Cannons, 
 ammunition, and war material that can be made, manu- 
 factured, or subsidized, will, doubtless, be forthcoming at 
 the hour of sore need ; but let us, as a rational people, 
 remember that we cannot put our looms, foundries, and 
 steam-power to " turn us out " horses ; nor are they by 
 any means a portable merchandise, if even opportunity of 
 purchase from any source offered. It takes five years, at 
 least, to mount a dragoon with any reasonable hope of even 
 an approximate amount of that training and endurance 
 essential to a cavalry charger to meet with efficiency the 
 duties devolving to his share through the evolutions and 
 hardships of modern warfare. And five years must only 
 be expected to put us in possession of immature " re- 
 mounts," by no means reliable under the trying ordeals of 
 a protracted campaign. With such unanswerable difficulties 
 staring the country in the face, how, in the name of the 
 very commonest common sense, is it that if we have no 
 better plan of operations to pursue we do not follow that 
 which has in other states been found to work with practical 
 success 1 The Government interposition has been a success 
 upon the Continent ; with greater indigenous advantages, 
 why should it not be, at least, equally beneficial to us now 
 in our extremity ? Let us not shirk the palpable induction, 
 it is DO longer a question of principle, but of coin ! ! 
 
 The following notice of operations of that great cavalry 
 
England's nortsEs, 
 
 power, Austria, from one of the leading daily papers, is ar 
 exemplification of the attention such matters obtain upon 
 the Continent, while here — well, " the least said the soonest 
 mended." 
 
 " Although French horses have but recently made themselves 
 a name, and even yet Frenchmen have but an indifferent repu- 
 tation in this country for their powers of horsemanship, strange 
 to say there always has been in England a very strong feeling 
 of respect and admiration for the riding qualities of Hungarians, 
 whose prowess and deeds of daring in war have long been 
 celebrated. The gallantry of Edelsheim's Hussars has almost 
 become a proverb in Europe, and the now far-famed Uhlans 
 honestly avow that they learnt many of their arts from the 
 example set them by their gallant enemies of '66. From time 
 immemorial, whatever may have been the defects and failings 
 of Austrian armies and of Austrian generals, no faults have ever 
 been found with their cavalry, and but few with those who led 
 it; while times out of mind have these gallant cavaliers snatched 
 victory out of the hand of the foe, or, as on the bloody field of 
 Koniggratz, saved from utter destruction the remnants of a 
 routed army. We are sure that our readers will be especially 
 glad to learn all the valuable details relating to horse-breeding 
 in Austria that have been placed at their disposal by Lieutenant 
 Colonel Goodenough, our military attache. In common with 
 our other representatives at foreign courts, he was requested to 
 collect information for Lord Eosebery's committee, and we find 
 the result of his enquiries embodied in a carefully written dis- 
 patch, which appears in the appendix of the blue-book issued 
 by the committee. We are likewise indebted to a speech which 
 Colonel Goodenough made on the same subject at a meeting of 
 the United Service Institution last March. 
 
 " As our readers are probably aware, Austria, although nom- 
 inally one empire, under one Emperor, in point of fact possesses 
 two governments and administrations, distinct and independent. 
 As in other matters, so in horse-breeding, the governments of 
 
FOR PEACE AND WAR. 7 
 
 Austria and Hungary legislate each for themselves, separately 
 and independently. Both encourage ' systematically ' the 
 breeding of horses ; in Austria there are two, and in Hungary 
 three government studs. A fourth also is soon to be added in 
 Transylvania. In each stud there are from two hundred to four 
 hundred mares, and from ten to twenty stallions, of almost all 
 descriptions of breeds. ' At present every endeavour is made to 
 keep these races distinct, and to send the largest proportion of 
 each to those parts of the country where they are found, by 
 experience, to do best. The produce of these studs is weeded 
 out, and the animals not considered fit for breeding are sold by 
 auction. Out of the best, mares are apportioned for the studs 
 themselves, and the staUions are sent to the depots, from whence 
 they travel the country in the season, and serve the country 
 mares on the payment of a small fee from 2s. to £10.' In re- 
 turn, however, for the services of these stallions, the Austrian 
 government, unlike the Prussian, has no claim whatever, on the 
 produce, which remains the exclusive property of the owner of 
 the mare. The extent to which farmers profit by this assistance 
 from the State may be judged by the fact that the Hungarian 
 government owns 1786 country stallions, and the Austrian 1600. 
 By a recent census the horses in the two countries numbered 
 3,525,000. Colonel Goodenough adds, ' The government seeks 
 to further stimulate the breeding of horses by giving prizes to 
 owners of the best stock ; in every country district there are 
 annual horse shows, at which commissioners, specially named, 
 attend, and award medals and prizes in money for the best 
 mares with foals, and further, for yearlings, and for two-year- 
 olds, and for three-year-olds. About i62,000 is devoted to this 
 purpose in the Austrian provinces this year. The government 
 also subsidises the owners of covering stallions for each such 
 horse examined and approved by them for breeding purposes ; 
 the animal has to be produced annually, and £10 to £30 is then 
 paid on his account.' The above appears to be the summary 
 of the assistance afforded by the Austrian government to private 
 breeders, and from all accounts some such artificial and extra- 
 
8 ENGLAND S HORSES, 
 
 neous aids are much needed, since not only are the peasant 
 farmers in Austria comparatively uneducated and inexperienced 
 in horse-breeding, but the climate in that country is for the 
 most part far less suited for rearing young stock than in 
 England. 
 
 " While, however, the general measures adopted by the 
 Austrian government for improving the breed of horses are on 
 the whole simple and apparently efficacious, their military regu- 
 lations for the formation of reserves are complicated, and would 
 seem scarcely calculated to attain the object for which they were 
 framed. About a year since a new horse conscription law was 
 passed, of which the following are the principal provisions : — 
 ' The whole country is divided into levying districts, and one or 
 more central places of reception are appointed for each. Every 
 year the War Department communicates to the civil authorities 
 the number of horses which would be required to complete the 
 army from a peace to a war footing, on the basis of the existing 
 organisation or ordre de hataiUe. On the basis of this informa- 
 tion, the Minister of Agriculture, who is aware, from reports 
 annually received through the district prefects, from the chiefs 
 or overseers of parishes, of the number of horses of different 
 classes to be found in each district, which are also classified 
 according to their probable fitness as riding, draught, or pack 
 horses— apportions to each district the number of animals it 
 has to furnish. At the commencement of each year commis- 
 sioners are appointed to each levying district, consisting gene- 
 rally of the civil prefect or his deputy, a field or other officer of 
 the army or landwehr, and a veterinary surgeon, whose ultimate 
 duty it is to pass horses into the service. Each commission is 
 assisted by three sworn valuers, experts, chosen if possible from 
 agricultural or other societies. On a mobilisation being ordered 
 the War Department announces the number of horses required, 
 and the time when they are to be delivered, and the civil 
 authorities summon all owners to bring their horses over four 
 years of age to the levying centres. Certain horses are ex- 
 empted from levy, such as those belonging to the Imperial 
 
FOR PEACE AND WAR. 9 
 
 family, or which servants of the State or postmasters are obliged 
 to keep to perform their duties, those belonging to public breed- 
 ing establishments, also all licensed stallions and brood mares 
 certified as such. The passing the horses into the service then 
 begins ; those are first taken which the owners- are ready to part 
 with for the ordinary remount price of £25 ; the remainder are 
 inspected, and those which are adjudged fit for service are 
 valued by the valuers attached to the commissions, and this is 
 done without reference to the remount price or to the possibly 
 temporarily enhanced prices occasioned by the mobilisation. 
 The horses valued are then passed into the service, commencing 
 with those of lowest adjudged value, and the owners are imme- 
 diately paid their price in cash To lighten the 
 
 burden of this forced levy, the parishes of a district are per- 
 mitted to avoid compulsory furnishing of horses, by voluntary 
 presentation of their proper coutingeut from their own district. 
 In this case they are paid the remount price augmented by ten 
 per cent., but the horses must be produced within forty-eight 
 hours of the receipt of the order to furnish them. Whilst the 
 levy is going on the owners must keep their horses at their own 
 expense ; but the government officers must not detain the horses 
 over forty- eight hours at the levying centres. Thizs, if every- 
 thing is in order, it may be estimated that the War Department 
 would be in possession of the horses they require at the levying 
 centres within four days of the receipt there of the order to 
 furnish them. It is worthy of remark that the major part of 
 the horses thus to be furnished would be destined for artillery or 
 transport purposes, as the cavalry regiments, forty-two in num- 
 ber, are kept up during peace to their full field strength, six 
 squadrons of 150, or 900 horses each, to which is only added, 
 on mobilisation, a first and a second reserve squadron. 
 
 " In addition to this system for providing a reserve of horses, 
 as so clearly explained by Colonel Goodenough, there is also in 
 Hungary a description of landwehr answering, in many respects, 
 to our yeomanry. These number in all 32 squadrons, and each 
 keeps up a permanent cadre for purposes of training, but they 
 also buy a certain proportion of horses in excess of their peace 
 
10 ENGLAND'S HORSES, 
 
 establishment. These animals are trained at head-quarters, and 
 are let out to farmers on the condition that they are to be avail- 
 able if required. Colonel Goodenough adds, ' I have myself 
 seen these horses when called out for manoeuvres, and I believe 
 that the system has worked well up to the present time.' 
 
 " We have placed the Austrian system of providing horses for 
 their army in considerable detail before our readers, as we con- 
 sider that the newest solution by one of the most military 
 powers in Europe of a problem which has puzzled, and still 
 continiTCS to puzzle, our most able soldiers is deserving of a 
 very full examination. At the same time it is impossible to 
 avoid detecting many flaws and weaknesses in any system which 
 is so complicated, and apparently would require far more than 
 the calculated time to be carried out. We all know the con- 
 fusion which, in nine cases out of ten, arises on a declaration 
 of war throughout all the departments of any government, 
 however well organised. If all goes well, within four days after 
 the order for mobilisation has been issued, the horses destined 
 for service of the state will have been selected, but it must be 
 remarked that even under the most favourable circumstances 
 they will only have been selected — they will not have been told 
 off to their duties, still less will they have been organized or 
 forwarded to the various points where they are required. As 
 an army without transport cannot move, and without artillery 
 cannot fight, unless some great alteration is introduced into the 
 system just explained we should have much solicitude for the 
 safety of an Austrian army during the first few weeks of a 
 campaign, if it was opposed to an active and energetic enemy 
 like Germany. In a country where distances are great, railways 
 few and ill-organized, the four days wasted in selecting horses 
 might make the difference between safety and ruin. Of course, 
 any such system of forced conscription is wholly impracticable 
 in England, and unless in case of invasion would be quite un- 
 necessary. The practice, however, of letting out surplus 
 cavalry horses to farmers has often been suggested, and is, 
 we think, deserving of consideration, more especially if the 
 principle of localization is ever to be extended to the cavalry," 
 
FOR PEACE AND WAR. H 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 My object is to lay before all who prize the horse, from a 
 love of the animal, or from sordid or prudential motives, 
 my views as to the great danger in which Ave stand of really 
 losing him altogether as a sound and useful animal, because 
 of the many causes that have been for years progressively 
 co-operating to deteriorate that class of horses from which 
 we derive many hunters, our hackney and harness horses, 
 and, we may say, all our re-mounts for cavalry and mounted 
 Artillery. I shall endeavour to point out the causes from 
 which a numerical as well as physical falling off in the 
 supply and its character has taken place, and the means 
 which I fancy would, as effect from cause, eventually put 
 things right again. 
 
 As nations, like individuals, are capable of deriving 
 benefit and wholesome instruction from example ; consider- 
 ing England's long and censurable apathy with regard to 
 that middle or half-bred class of horses that in past time 
 she so successfully and ardently founded and maintained, a 
 reference to a similar national crime or folly, in connection 
 with a like subject, by no less a power than that of ancient 
 Rome, in the plenitude of her greatness, and its decading 
 consequences may be worth contemplation here. At least, 
 the example is not without its most suggestive moral. The 
 students of equine literature need not be told that I owe 
 my following facts to authors of established repute. 
 
12 ENGLAND'S HORSES, 
 
 Rome found herself, when at the zenith of her power, in 
 possession of a famous breed of horses adequate to the 
 varied domestic duties of a peaceful existence, as well as to 
 the more important and arduous exigencies of war. What 
 the accident of circumstances and the practical policy of 
 other powers, over Avhich supremacy in arms had given her 
 dominance, had placed at her command in the way of 
 horses, she permitted to deteriorate, and censurably neg- 
 lected any system of improvement, or supply of a, no doubt, 
 valuable race of horses for their times and necessities. 
 
 As from the Roman Invasion of Britain it is obvious the 
 native breed of these islands derived a direct and important 
 " cross," it will be well to glance at the sources from 
 whence the stock importing the primary blood and form of 
 our horses was derived. 
 
 Fable and obscurity wrap the origin and early history of 
 the horse in mysticism. According to the Mosaic text, 
 Asia has given to him, as to man, and all animals that had 
 their prototypes in the Ark with Noah and his family, 
 their original existence. Sixteen hundred years before the 
 advent of the Messiah it is recorded that the horse was 
 used in Egypt. Zoologists acquaint us that the Equidce 
 are traced over a very vast surface of the Old World — 
 from the West of Ireland to Eastern Tartary, and, from the 
 Polar Regions to South of The Himalayas, and to an 
 unexhausted distance in Northern Africa. They argue 
 with every show of reason that, because their remains are 
 found in a fossil state co-existing with the debris of other 
 animals of a former zoology, that they must have existed in 
 the distribution of a period anterior to our own. A per- 
 tinent inference as to the high order of the animal horse in 
 the creation's scale resides in the fact that, while other 
 genera and species with which his fossilized remains have 
 been discovered have ceased to exist, or have removed to 
 
FOR PKACE AND WAK. 13 
 
 higher temperatures, the horse, in our time, alone of these, 
 is to be found in the same regions, and apparently, without 
 protracted interruption ; since, from the circumstances 
 which manifest deposits to be of the earliest era in ques- 
 tion, fragments of his skeleton continue to be found and 
 traced upwards in successional formations of the earth's 
 strata to present superficial and vegetable mould. Learned 
 philological and other abstruse enquiries, conducted by the 
 ablest authorities, give us only a reasonable deduction upon 
 which to base the opinion that the original horse of South- 
 western Asia came in a domestic state from the North- 
 East. Hence the first mention made of domesticated horses 
 is coeval with the patriarch Jacob's death, when chariots 
 and horses went up with Joseph when his father's body 
 was carried for burial in the cave of the field of Mac?ipelah. 
 Is it too much to suppose that with Jacob came horses to 
 Egypt ? For he came from On (the Greek Heliopolis), 
 the country of the graziers, invaders, and charioteers from 
 High Asia. 
 
 In those remote times, anterior to the domestication of 
 the horse, colonization was of slow and gradual advance, 
 and military conquest restricted to mere vicinity. With 
 commendable alacrity, Sesosteis availed himself of the 
 horses of the defeated shepherd invaders, and with those — 
 the first brought to Egypt — he, in turn, passed eastward, to 
 the very sources from which they had issued. From his 
 era horses have been used in Egypt, but that they were 
 numerous in the ranks of war then is doubtful ; for, until 
 the time of Joseph, as alluded to, they were unnoticed, and 
 even though at that time the shepherd Scythian invaders of 
 Goshen had been expelled, horses were alluded to as of 
 recent and novel introduction. Even so far on as the 
 exodus of the Israelites from Egyj^t, it is recorded that, in 
 the pursuit of the Red Sea, the Egyptians could only call 
 
1.4 England's horses, 
 
 out at short notice six hundred chariots of war — " all the 
 chariots of Egypt." Little reliance can be placed in pro- 
 fane historians, and poetical records are not history; but 
 the treatment of the Centaurs, the characters of themselves 
 and horses, though evidently fabulous, lead to a reasonable 
 deduction of a race of horse-men and horses from a basis 
 of truth wrought into imagery and fiction. These fabled 
 beings, but, doubtless, cavalry invaders, belong to the 
 earliest descent of mounted hordes from Central Asia upon 
 Thrace and Thessaly by North of the Black Sea. and across 
 the Lower Danube. It has been inferred that the fabled 
 Centaurs were, in realitj^the bold horsemen of the northern 
 Scythpe of High Asia. The period of this raid or invasion 
 synchronises with the heroic age of Greece, and is suffi- 
 ciently near the periods of the expulsion of the Grazier or 
 Shepherd invaders, the invasion of Asia by Sesostris or 
 Rameses IL and III, and the Indian Epic legends, to esta- 
 blish the epoch of great movements through all the regions 
 in question, and fix the period when horse, chariot, and 
 rider first make their appearance. But it is worthy of 
 notice here that (in Genesis xlix. 17) there is an anterior 
 evidence that riding was not unknown in the days of Jacob 
 — " An adder in the path, that biteth the horse's heels, so 
 that his rider falleth backwards."* 
 
 Although it has been attempted to confer upon Africa 
 the honour of having supplied to Egypt horses, in an 
 almost wild state, for subjugation and use, still, from the 
 fact of there being no true indigenous feral horse in Africa, 
 and as the current of human civilization did not certainly 
 set in from Africa to the North-East, while Egypt was not 
 a country for wild horses when the domesticated first 
 appeared there, and that the elements of progressive cul- 
 
 * Note. — I acknowledge my otligations to Colonel Smith and other 
 authors. 
 
FOR PEACE AND WAR. 15 
 
 ture were taken from Asia, whence the people came, and to 
 which alone they acknowledged affinity, to Asia it is 
 reasonable to attribute the horses of Egypt, and those 
 countries deriving their horses or " cross " from them. 
 But, even in Asia there was a difference respecting horses ; 
 for ever since human records began, the male, and occa- 
 sionally the female population have used the saddle in the 
 northern half, while in the southern it is only within the 
 commencement of profane history that the better classes 
 are mounted and riding tribes, having preferred swift 
 camels, as the Kyale Arabs do to this day. 
 
 Want of more accurate geographical knowledge of the 
 territorial limits of primitive Arabia and ancient Egypt, 
 tend to mislead the enquirer regarding the horses in either. 
 A large portion of Western Persia, all Palestine, and Eastern 
 Syria was occasionally claimed within the boundaries of 
 Arab sway in ancient times ; and, since the Hejira, they 
 have extended, Eastward, far beyond the Euphrates, and. 
 West, to Morocco. . Likewise ancient Egypt at times claimed 
 part of Arabia, of Syria, and the whole of Palestine. Buffon, 
 who asserts that Avild horses have been, and still are found 
 in Arabia, with even the Avide margin of territory that 
 above facts allow, must be held as in error, for it is argued 
 that " all the peninsula and the provinces that can by any 
 extension be claimed within the limits of the country, 
 have been tenanted from the earliest periods by wander- 
 ing tribes grazing camels, goats, and sheep, on every space 
 that produced verdure ; and there are, nowhere, districts 
 sufficiently inaccessible, or cover properly qualified to 
 shelter horses in a wild state." The probability that there 
 were no horses in this barren and inappropriate region 
 until the period of the Scythian conquerors, or Shepherd 
 Kings, who brought them from high Asia, and left behind 
 them, with many words of their language, their horses. 
 
10 England's horses. 
 
 when they had been either immolated or expelled, is the 
 impressive argument set up to show that the Arab horse of 
 the past and present is, like our own thorough-bred, an 
 artificial animal, dependent for his intrinsic qualities to the 
 accident of climatic influence, domestic treatment, " cross- 
 ing," and judicious culture. 
 
 To ancient Egypt has been awarded, by philologists, the 
 first systematic attention to rearing and improving breeds 
 of horses. 
 
 That from the Egyptians, Persians, Armenians, the Arabs 
 first derived the horse is, no doubt, correct. That they 
 cannot claim an indigenous horse at any 'period researches 
 of a very exhaustive character have, at various times, been 
 advanced to show. But, at the time of their uniting under 
 the sway of the Koran, they had for long, as a nation, been 
 accustomed to horses, is evidenced by the manner in which 
 their marvellous cavalry conquests were enforced over the 
 enormous mounted armies of Sassian Parthians, and the 
 disciplined science of Eastern Rome. We read : — " None 
 but a people long possessed of numerous and well trained 
 chargers, could have given wings to the sword of Islam, 
 and in sixty years planted its victorious banners on the 
 Pyrenees, as well as on the banks of the Ganges." 
 
 With the extended conquests of the soldiers of the 
 crescent flowed throughout Southern Europe and the far 
 East that strain of equine blood, derived originally through 
 the ancient Egyptians, Parthians, and Armenians from high 
 Asia, after long periods of careful culture and " crossing " 
 had improved the animal type that represented it. 
 
 The important correspondence that the interest for our 
 present subject has led to in the columns of the Times and 
 other journals, gives us, from the scholarly pen of the Earl 
 OF WiNCHiLSEA AND NOTTINGHAM, the most able letter it 
 has been my good fortune to read upon thu Arab and Barb 
 
FOR PEACE AND WAR. 17 
 
 strains of blood to which we owe so much. In reply to 
 one of Admiral Roiis's didactic and characteristic philippics 
 his Lordship writes in the Times, Saturday, March 7th, as 
 follows .• — 
 
 ADMIRAL ROUS ON THE TURF. 
 To the EdiioT of The Times. 
 
 Sir, — It is with some reluctance that I pursue this subject, 
 interesting though it be, because I am persuaded that it is im- 
 possible for me, by any amount of proof, to convince the Admiral 
 that he is in the wrong. 
 
 He says " Barb " and " Arab " mean the same tiling : and 
 so, I apprehend, as far as he is concerned, they always will. 
 
 He is the Ofellus of the Turf : 
 
 " Nauticus, abnormis sapiens, crassdque Minerva." 
 
 " A fine old tar from whom surprises come, 
 
 " Who deals in mother wit, and rule of thumb." 
 
 It is not, then, with his stores of information that I would 
 quarrel, but with the conclusions that he draws from them, and 
 the summary fashion after which he disposes of difficulties 
 which appear very great to others who, like himself, have for 
 many years studied the questions of which he considers himself 
 Lord of the Manor. 
 
 I shall confine this letter almost entirely to considering 
 whether the Barb and the Arab do, in fact, mean one and the 
 same thing. In my first letter I met this assertion \f\ih a broad 
 denial ; and I shall now give some of the reasons which have 
 Jed me to that conclusion, to which I must still adhere in spite 
 of all the prestige and authority of Abd-el-Kader, In fact, I 
 cannot accept Abd-el-Kader's assertions as conclusive where I 
 can show that they are not corroborated by other testimony ; 
 nay, more, where the balance of history and unexceptionable 
 evidence is clearly against them. 
 
 It seems to me that the Emir's account of the Barbs being, 
 in fact, pure-bred Arabs (see his memorandum addressed to 
 General Daumas in reply to the latter's enquiries) is much upon 
 a par with the Nejdean tradition of Solomon's horse. Palgrave, 
 
18 England's horses, 
 
 the latest writer ou the subject, who travelled through the Nejed 
 in 1862, considers " the greater part of these pedigrees, and 
 still more the antiquity of their origin, as comparatively recent 
 inventions, got up for the market of Bedoains— i. e., Arabs of 
 the Desert — and townsmen." He adds that one of the grooms 
 attached to the stud of Feysul, Sultan of Eiad, then chief of the 
 Wahabees, who ruled over the whole of the interior of Arabia 
 from Djowf to Hasa, on the Persian Gulf, and consequently pos- 
 sessed the whole of the Nejed, remarked to him " that Solomon 
 was more likely to have taken horses from us than we from him " 
 — a criticism worthy of a Yorkshireman : but Abd el-Kader deals 
 with this tradition as positively historical, and in some measure 
 founds his theory upon it. 
 Palgrave says, moreover : — 
 
 " I found at Hayel and in Djebel Shomer good examples of what is com- 
 monly called the Arab horse ; these are for the most part the produce of a 
 mare from the neighbourhood and a Nejdean horse, sometimes the reverse, 
 but never, it would seem, thorough Nejdee on both sides. "With all their ex- 
 cellencies, these horses are less symmetrically elegant ; their height, too, is 
 much more varied ; some of them attain 16 hands, and some are down to 14. 
 From these, purchases are made every now and then by European princes, 
 peers, and commoners, often at astounding prices." 
 
 Here I may mention that Burckhardt, who wrote in 1829, 
 says that there are mares in the stud of Saoud, then ruler of 
 the Nejed, for which he had given as much as £650. Palgrave 
 continues : — 
 
 " The genuine Nejdean breed i. e., thoroughbred Arab (sire and dam) is 
 never sold ; and when asked how one could be acquired, they answered him, 
 by war, by legacy, or by free gift. In this last manner there is a possibility of 
 an isolated specimen leaving the Nejed, but even that is seldom; and when 
 policy requires a present to Egypt, Persia, or Constantinople, mares are never 
 sent, and the poorest stallions (though deserving elsewhere to pass for real 
 beauties^ are picked out for the purpose." (p. 309.) 
 
 How then are we to suppose that the horses of Zab (formerly 
 Numidia), of which Abd-el-Kader speaks, are to be reckoned 
 Arabs of pure family — i. e., thoroughbred, both by the side of 
 sire and dam —when it has from time immemorial been the rule 
 of the Nejed (the only district where they exist) never to let a 
 mare go out of the country. 
 
 Palgrave goes on to state that " the total of the Nejdean cen- 
 sus of horses would not sum up 5,000 ; " and says, moreover, 
 
FOR PEACE AND WAR. 19 
 
 " that the number of horses in an army is perfectly inconsider- 
 able when compared with that of camel riders ; and that in 
 Nejed horses are never used excepting in war or parade." 
 
 Burckhardt abundantly confirms this statement, and adds 
 some very interesting particulars. He says (p. 247, Bedouins 
 and Wahahees) — 
 
 " The Aeneze tribes on the frontiers of Syria have from eight to ten 
 thousand horses ; the roving tribes in that neighbourhood probably half as 
 many. To the single tribe of Montefyk, in the Desert, -n-atered by the 
 Euphrates, between Bagdad and Basrah, we may assign 8,000 ; and the tribes 
 of Dhofyr and Beni Shammar are proportionably rich in those noble quadru- 
 peds ; while the province of Nejed, Djebel Shouier and Kasj'm (that is, from 
 the Persian Gulf as far as Mediuah) do not possess 10,000." 
 
 He then affirms '• that the aggregate number of horses in the 
 whole of Arabia, from the Ked Sea to the Persian Gulf, does not 
 exceed 50,0C0." He states in another place (p. 246) " that 
 out of the united armies of all the Wahabee chiefs who attacked 
 Mahomet Ali in 1815, at Byssel, consisting of 25,000 men, there 
 were but 500 horsemen, mostly belonging to the Nejed and the 
 followers of Feysul, one of Saoud's sons," who, at the date of 
 Palgrave's visit, was Sultan of Kiad (the capital of Nejed) and 
 the whole AYahabee country. He states, too, emphatically, that 
 " it is a general, but erroneous opinion, that Arabia is very rich 
 in horses" (p. 246). Now, these statements are amply con- 
 firmed by history. 
 
 "When Mahomet fought his second battle, that of Ohod, with 
 his old enemies from Mecca, his brethren of the tribe of Koresh, 
 he had but 1,000 men, out of which but two were horsemen ; his 
 opponents had 8,000 men, out of which 200 were horsemen 
 (Washington Irving's Life of MaJwmet .) 
 
 This historical fact amply bears out both Burckhardt and 
 Palgrave's statements ; and it is worthy of observation that, 
 although it may sound to the ears of Arab breeders a fine thing 
 to date their thoroughbred ones back to Kabda, Noam a, Wajza, 
 Sabha, and Heyma, the five mares of the Prophet (from which, 
 according to their account, spring the five thoroughbred 
 Nejdean families of horses — viz., the Taueyse, Manekye, 
 Koheyl, Sachlawye, and Djulfe), Mahomet himself usually rode 
 
20 England's houses, 
 
 upon a mule, or the camel El Karwa, whose name has come 
 down to us by the direct track of history, whereas the names of 
 the mares exist but in Arabian tradition. 
 
 Abd-el-Kader, according to Admiral Kous's statement (but it 
 is not mentioned in his report to Greneral Daumas), says — "The 
 great event which filled Arabia with Arab horses was the inva- 
 sion of Sidi Okba." Now, Sidi Okba (as Abd-el-Kader calls him) is 
 the Achbah Ibn Nafe el Fehri of history, and he, we know, was 
 despatched by the Caliph Moawiyah (the sixth successor of 
 Mahomet) from Damascus with 10,000 horse to follow up the 
 conquest of Africa begun by Abd-allah Ibn Satid. He therefore 
 took with him twice as many horses as the whole census of the 
 Nedjed amounted to in 1862. Moreover, he started from 
 Damascus, which lies at the head of Mesopotamia, the district 
 where Burckhardt assures us the tribes most rich in horses (and 
 these not true Arabs, but Arab cock-tails as we may call them) 
 are to be found. It was not thoroughbred Arabs, then, but 
 Mesopotamians, Persians, Syrians, and cock-tails of all sorts 
 that finished by pushing their invasion as far as Zab—i.e., 
 Algeria, or ancient Numidia. Moreover, Sidi Okba came to 
 signal grief, for he was eventually utterly discomfited and slain 
 by Aben Cahina, a native Kabaile chief, near a place called 
 Jehuda, when his whole army was destroyed, and what belonged 
 to them confiscated for the benefit of the conquerors. 
 
 Are we to suppose, then, that this was the chosen moment, 
 when everything was confusion, for establishing the pure Ara- 
 bian breed in North Africa, keeping up the niceties of its breed- 
 ing, and dating from that special departure the moment from 
 which the native horse of Numidia (the Barb) lost his individu- 
 ality, and became one and the same with the Arab ? It requires 
 no special scepticism to answer " No ! " 
 
 But Abd-el-Kader, in his report to General Daumas says, 
 further, "that there were invasions of Africa by certain Arab 
 tribes before the birth of Islamism," and hints " that they 
 then brought Arab horses with them, which gives an earlier 
 claim to the Barb to be considered of pure Arabian blood." 
 
FOR PEACE AND WAR. 21 
 
 This appears to me to be proviBg too much, and, in fact, begging 
 the question. 
 
 Now, all that I think can be safely predicated amounts to 
 this — that a stream of fresh Arabian blood was (possibly through 
 many ages ; certainly since the end of the seventh century A.C.) 
 flowing into North Africa, with which the native horse or Barb 
 was crossed, and probably much improved ; but this neither jus- 
 tifies Abd-el-Kader nor Admiral Kous in making the declaration 
 that the Barb and Arab are one and the same race, as both con- 
 fidently assert. 
 
 That General Daumas had grave doubts on the subject, or, 
 indeed, was of opinion that the Barb and Arab were of different 
 races, sufficiently appears from Abd-el-Kader's own statement — 
 " You say that you are told that the horses of Algeria are not 
 Arabian, but Berberein — i. e., Barbs." To this Abd-el-Kader 
 replies in a style that reminds one strongly of Admu-al Kous — 
 " This opinion recoils upon its holders ; the Berbers are genuine 
 Arabs." Compare that with Admiral Eous's dictum in his 
 second letter — "Plaice's White Turk and other nominal Turkish 
 stallions were pure Arabs." Indeed, were they ? Show that, 
 if you please, Admiral, but pray do not take it for granted. 
 For my part, I think I have succeeded in demolishing both your 
 and Abd-el-Kader's proposition, that " Barb and Arab are con- 
 vertible terms," and a little later I hope to dispose of your 
 theory about Turks being "pure Arabs." Abd-el-Kader, not 
 content with enforcing his favourite notion about the horses, 
 goes still further in order to support it; and, I own, astonishes 
 me not a little, for he makes the Berbers themselves Arabs. 
 " Doubt there is none," says he, " that the Arabian horse came 
 with his Arabian rider." Now, as the Emir insists upon it that 
 Arabs and Barbs mean precisely the same thing in horseflesh, 
 he will have to contend that their riders were the same too ; but 
 if this be so, what is to become of Jugurtha, and his cavaliers, 
 a great man of whom most of us have heard as much, if not 
 more, than of the Emir himself? 
 
 However, seeing the absurdity of this sweeping proposition, 
 
'I'l ENGLAND S HORSES, 
 
 tlie Emir is obliged to qualify it by admitting " that if all tbe 
 horses of Algeria are of Arabian blood many have fallen from 
 their nobleness" — thus, in fact, subverting his own theor3', 
 "that the Barb is an exotic imported into North Africa from 
 Arabia," and reducing it to some such proposition as this — ^viz,, 
 that the native race has been through many ages crossed, re- 
 freshed, and improved by horses coming from the East under 
 the general name of Arabs, the said horses being, to speak 
 strictly, not pure Arabs, but rather a multitude made up of a 
 dozen different species, coming from as many different districts. 
 
 Not only General Daumas, but almost every one who has had 
 an opportunity of seeing both Barbs and Arabs, will be of opinion 
 that the races differ. A Barb has a striking resemblance to the 
 English thoroughbred horse, whereas nothing, as far as ap- 
 pearance goes, can be more dissimilar than the Arab. Their 
 action, too, is different. The Barb lays himself out, and gallops 
 like a thoroughbred. The gallop of an Arab is good for a short 
 spurt only, his natural pace being a long lunging trot, which he 
 is said to be able to keep up for hours — nay, days together, 
 under a hot sun, and with little or no food or water. In a race 
 of a moderate length he cannot hope to beat a good Barb, still 
 less an English racehorse, as has often been proved. I myself 
 have seen a Barb which won all the races of his day, and may 
 be said to have fairly " cleaned out the Mediterranean," that 
 stood at least 16.} hands, and was to look at very much such a 
 horse as Wolf Dog, who won the Chester Cup. Youatt also 
 confirms me in my opinion. "The Barb," says he, "is de- 
 cidedly superior to the Arabian in form, but has not his spirit, 
 or speed, or countenance. When the improvement of horses 
 began to be systematically pursued in Great Britain, the Barb 
 was very early introduced." After mentioning that the so- 
 called Godolphin Arabian was really a Barb, he says, " the 
 Barb alone excels the Arab in noble and spirited action." 
 
 There now remains the Stud Booh, in the first volume of which 
 we find that the proportion of Barb mares therein mentioned as 
 founders of famihes is to Arabs as two and a half to one. This 
 
FOR PEACE AND WAR. 23 
 
 alone would justify us in calling the English racehorse an 
 Anglo-Barb rather than an Anglo-Arab ; but, in fact, there 
 were other sources besides, from which many important families 
 spring — all of them, however, exotic and foreign. 
 
 It seems to me, then, that I have sufficiently disproved 
 Admiral Eous and Abd-el-Kader's assertion that Barbs and 
 Arabs are the same thing — firstly, by the testimony of history ; 
 secondly, by common repute ; thirdly, by Youatt's description ; 
 fourthly, by the pages of the Stud Book; and, fifthly, by strong 
 and cogent argument. 
 
 Now for a word on the subject of those horses which are 
 mentioned as Turks by their contemporaries, but which the 
 Admiral unhesitatingly informs us were, in fact, " pure Arabs." 
 I would ask, why were Mr. Plaice's White Turk, the Byerley 
 Turk, and numerous others, not to be of that race which their 
 name imports ? 
 
 The Turcoman horses, coming from the districts beyond the 
 Oxus and Jaxartes, no doubt carried their riders, the Turks, to 
 Constantinople, and thence far on into Europe. Are we to sup- 
 pose that the Turks are Arabs, or Moors, or Egyptians ? They 
 were nothing of the sort, neither were their horses. Turcoman 
 horses, says Youatt, bred in the countries north-east of the 
 Caspian, are large — standing from fifteen to sixteen hands high. 
 So were most of the stallions that have come down to us under 
 the Stud Book name of Turks. Why, then, are we to 8U];)pose 
 that contemporaries should have been so far deceived as to be 
 entirely ignorant of what they were saying when they called one 
 horse a Turk, another a Persian, a third a Barb, and a fourth 
 an Arab ? It is far safer to accept their testimony than to 
 summarily dispose of it after a reckless and arbitrary fashion. 
 
 Here I may mention that it was always my impression that 
 the Royal mares were imported from North Africa ; and Youatt 
 certainly says that they were Barbs and Turks, not Arabs. 
 
 From these considerations I arrive at the following con- 
 clusions : — 
 
24 England's horses, 
 
 1. That if one must clioose an arbitrary title for the English 
 thoroughbred, it should rather be Anglo-Barb than Anglo-Arab. 
 
 2. That Barb and Arab are not the same thing. 
 
 3. That it is unreasonable to reject the names given by 
 owners and importers to their horses, and to lump Turkish, 
 Persian, and Hungarian horses under one general head of Arabs. 
 
 4. That every English thoroughbred is an exotic coming on 
 both sides from some foreign stock, without any cross of English 
 blood in him, 
 
 I may be told, perhaps, that these matters are not now of 
 importance, and that as the English thoroughbred has been 
 brought to a state of perfection, it does not much signify by 
 what process of crossing the result was arrived at ; but be that 
 as it may, the subject must always be one of great interest to 
 those who are not content to accep»t results without studying the 
 means b}' which they have been secured. 
 
FOR PEACE AND WAR. 25 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 When the Romans invaded England, under Csesar, tliey 
 found an indigenous wild horse, partly subdued by the 
 inhabitants, and this native animal was known for ages 
 after to roam districts of the island in a perfectly feral 
 state. They ought to be more properly termed ponies than 
 horses ; being of diminutive stature, great hardihood, and 
 extraordinary intelligence and cunning. 
 
 To the horses of the Alec, or auxiliary cavalry, and other 
 horses of the expedition, we attribute the foundation of 
 that race for which the British islands are so famous. The 
 Anglo-Saxon conquest introduced another " cross." The 
 Romans, in their economy regarding horse breeding, evinced 
 inferiority in judgment and foresight to the Greeks. In a 
 numerous body of their writers, not one felt the importance 
 of advancing the theory of sound and improving principles 
 of horse breeding. They believed in all the superstitions 
 and absurdities of the idle inventions of silly, and ignorant, 
 or vicious people ; and were easily imposed upon by dealers. 
 " If proof was wanted of the true appreciation of the im- 
 portance good breeds of horses are to a state, we shall find 
 it in the absence of all government institutions of the kind 
 amongst the Romans, until taught by the misfortunes this 
 neglect had brought upon the empire. Some such establish- 
 ments for improvement and supply of " the raw material " 
 were adopted in the Asiatic conquests." 
 
26' England's horses, 
 
 The Norman conquest of England, effected by mounted 
 adventurers from every country in Western Europe, bad a 
 marked effect upon tbe breed of horses in England. At 
 that time the Spanish breeds, so largely indebted to Eastern 
 blood, obtained through the Mahomedan invasion, ex- 
 tended to England, and it is recorded that William himself 
 rode a war horse of that race at the battle of Hastings. 
 The newly-installed nobles, confident that their victory 
 there was greatly owing to their superiority in cavalry, 
 supported horse breeding with zest and vigour. Eoger de 
 Bologne, Earl of Shrewsbury, is recorded to have estab- 
 lished " the race of Spain " on his newly-acquired estates of 
 Powisland. 
 
 In the battle of Hastings, that the horses were of a much 
 lighter description than those of later days of Norman 
 chivalry, may be inferred from the fact that there the 
 knights were not completely clothed in heavy armour that 
 marked a later era, and that their lances were of so much 
 greater lightness at the invasion, than further on, that they 
 admitted of being used as javelins or darts. The inference 
 is, that as "self-preservation is the first law of nature," 
 inculcating to us the most ample means for defensive and 
 offensive action in warfare, the warriors of the Normans 
 would have been more heavily armed in accordance with 
 that natural law and their own physical power, had the 
 abilities of their steeds to carry more weight than they 
 imposed at Hastings, and co-eval with their immediate 
 advent, admitted such a course of action. 
 
 That much attention was paid to increased bulk from 
 this time may be entertained from the altered weight of 
 arms and horses in the Crusades. 
 
 It is recorded that Lorabardy (a.d. 1217) furnished a 
 valuable contingent for increasing the size and weight of 
 the war horse or destrier of the knight. It is written : — 
 
FOTl PEACE AND WAll. '27 
 
 " For, in the rich pastures of the Po a race of ponderous 
 Bestriros had been found." It may have been from a 
 " cross " derived from the descendants of this Lombardian 
 blood and the "one hundred chosen stalUons " subsequently 
 imported by King John from Flanders, that our truly noble 
 breed of active dray horses have sprung. 
 
 It is, rather, to the introduction of such animals as the 
 two Arabs named A.D. 1121 ; the one, as having been 
 imported by King Henry I. ; the other, as having been a 
 gift from Alexander I. of Scotland to the Church of St. 
 Andrew's, at a period when sacerdotal sway was dominant 
 in the land, and entered so largely and didactically into all 
 secular affairs, that we are indebted for a valuable " cross " 
 with the then intermixed breed that successive conquests 
 and a native feral species had produced in England. 
 
 The minds of the representatives of chivalry, embracing 
 all Nobles and Knights that ruled the land and held 
 despotic sway with the iron sceptre of feudalism, were so 
 enamoured of "great horses," that is, large and powerful 
 ones, capable of bearing the cumbrous panoply of war or 
 tournay, that marked the chivalric era of England, that, 
 notwithstanding there are records of the repeated introduc- 
 tion of Turkish and Barbary horses for the purjjose of union 
 with the then existing breed of English mares, it does not 
 appear that there was any acknowledged advantage from 
 the " cross " prior to the reign of James I., who patronised 
 horse racing, and systematized the pursuit. Not content 
 with the efforts made through Turk and Barb stallions to 
 infuse more Eastern blood into the horses of his country, 
 he carried his views further and dealt with a merchant 
 named Markham for an Arab horse at the then enormous 
 price of five hundred pounds. In our day we see twelve 
 thousand five hundred guineas given for a sire (Blair 
 Athol). But, even still, the nobility and gentry had a 
 
28 ENGLAND S HORSES, 
 
 strong predilection for large heavy horses, in which views 
 they were supported by a celebrated member of their own 
 order, the author of two works that to a comparatively 
 recent period have enjoyed the reputation of standard text 
 books on the continent in matters of menage, &c. This 
 was the celebrated Duke of Newcastle, a thorough disciple 
 and advocate of the Tignatelli school of horsemanship, 
 introduced by the person from whom it takes its name, in 
 the reign of Henry VIII. at Naples, and was the founda- 
 tion of our present approved system of equitation so ably 
 illustrated by the teaching of Mr. Frederick Allen. The 
 deserved reputation for knowledge and exalted rank of the 
 duke naturally gave weight to his views and counsel. He 
 unfortunately described the Arab horse as " a little bony 
 animal of ordinary shape, not. fleet, and good for nothing." 
 This course of action much impeded the wise efforts of 
 King James, but by no means discouraged them. He 
 bought another horse from a Mr. Plaice, who was subse- 
 quently exalted to the position of Stud Master to the wise 
 and utilitarian Oliver Cromwell, from which circumstance, 
 if no more solid existed, a reasonable inference may be 
 deduced, that, a foreign horse imported by one who was 
 considered competent to advance to such a position as Mr. 
 Plaice enjoyed under the Commonwealth, was a good sample 
 of his breed. This horse's name still stands out in proud 
 distinction at the very root of some of the best pedigrees to 
 be traced in the annals of Weatherby, and is known to 
 posterity as The White Turk.* Soon after this the horsey 
 monarch's favourite — " Steney " — Villiers, 1st Duke of 
 Buckingham, introduced The Helmsley Turk, and 
 subsequently The Morocco Barb was added by Lord 
 Fairfax. Such patronage to a new order of breeding, at 
 least, happily begot for it the all-powerful aid of "fashion," 
 
 *N0TE. — See the Earl of "Wiuchilsea's letter to the Times, page 17. 
 
FOR PEACE AND WAR. 29 
 
 aud from this period the preceding taste for "great 
 horses" gradually and visibly diminished. Charles I. 
 strongly imbued with the same feelings about horses as 
 King James, gave strong support and countenance to 
 racing, as the most direct goal to the national good for 
 establishment of a desirable breed of horses. Independent * 
 of monetary consideration, the Isthmean contests founded 
 in this monarch's reign in Hyde Park and at Newmarket 
 begat a rivalry and a channel for the exercise of mind and 
 money gratifying to the dominant and wealthy classes, that 
 induced to the breeding of that description of steed that, 
 combined with great weight-carrying and enduring powers, 
 the utmost fleetness that could be gained without impairing 
 the other named two great essential qualities. Indeed, we 
 find that one so practical and expert in military matters as 
 The Protector himself had discovered that mere bone and 
 stature was no match against action, speed, courage, and 
 endurance ; for, all reliable records go to show such was the 
 class of " re-mount " that made his cavalry a singular page 
 in history and brilliant in poesy and story. 
 
 At any rate, from his period the matter in favour of 
 Eastern blood seems to have been decided, for, it is the 
 subject of record that at the time of the Restoration 
 Charles II. sent his "Master of the Horse " with a strong 
 commission to the Levant, to purchase stallions and mares. 
 Barbs and Turkish horses became frequent, numerous 
 imports to England at this time, and eventually stallions of 
 every breed of the East were grafted on the British horse. 
 To the time of Queen Anne, more particularly since the 
 Darle}^ Arabian era, Avhen the imj^orter of that very cele- 
 brated progenitor of our best blood after much opposition 
 succeded in establishing the Arab "cross" effectually; and in 
 engrafting that race upon the English, thus completing the 
 working of a system, which, under careful management had 
 
30 England's horsks, 
 
 given, us tlie desiderata of speed, stamina, beauty, and 
 soundness up to the period when the results from a ntv) 
 organization of the racing code of laws began to show its 
 sad and lamentable effects upon, not only the highest order 
 of horses, but, throughout the various breeds of any im- 
 portance in the nation, deriving largely from turf blood. 
 
FOR PEACE AND WAR ol 
 
 CHAPTER [V. 
 
 The majority of horses bred in the British kingdoms and 
 colonies for the ordinary purposes of domestic and fashion- 
 able life, the chase, and war, are not thoroughbred, but 
 possess a very large and predominant share of stud-book 
 blood ; and, almost generally, are derived from stallions the 
 ofF-spring of the racing arena. It behoves us not here to 
 enter into the question so much agitated as to what particu- 
 lar strain of blood the English racehorse derives his highest 
 attributes from. Arab, Barb, Turk, Spanish, Flemish, Ger- 
 man, and Norman horses have more or less contributed to 
 produce this horse as he was, and as he is, under the dif- 
 ferent influences consequent upon his management and 
 employment. The powers of English racehorses, tested in 
 every countiy and under every clime, have been proved pre- 
 eminent. It is unnecessary to quote the recorded instances 
 which are so familiar to all readers of literature of this 
 description. It is enough for us to know that by the term 
 blood, an eminent writer defines it in horses to mean " the 
 qualities produced in a horse by a superiority of muscular 
 substance, lightness, and compactness of form, united with 
 a justly proportioned shape ; or a physical structure of 
 tendon, bone, and lungs, proper to afford the full effects of 
 the mechanical means of speed, when set in motion by high 
 innervation. When these conditions of the problem are 
 fully carried out, by a judicious and persevering course of 
 
32 England's horses, 
 
 breeding and education, tliere Avill be beauty of form, and 
 the blood will be adapted to sucli purposes, within the com- 
 pass of the laws of nature, as were aimed at, provided 
 recourse has been had from the hegiyming to select the 
 finest models for the purpose." Well, so it is, no doubt, and 
 that the practice pursued carefully in these kingdoms for 
 numerous years has produced a type of horse, taking him 
 all in all, never before equalled is, likewise, a truism. I 
 shall, therefore, start with the assumption that at some com- 
 paratively recent period, if not now, we had generally the 
 English thoroughbred a representative of blood, substance, 
 bone, power, beauty, action, temper, and fleetness with in- 
 domitable endurance. And we must admit that with the 
 stud use of individual examples, approximating in a reason- 
 able degree to this high standard, our pasturable districts in 
 this kingdom and the " Sister Isle," produced a half-bred 
 stock for the supply of the nation's cavalry and artillery, 
 and for ordinary purposes of saddle and harness, of great 
 excellence and reputation. It is also desirable to note here 
 that from causes which I shall proceed to elucidate in the 
 sequel, the same amount of genuine and desirable attributes 
 are largely absent from this important class of England's 
 horses at the present time ; so much so, indeed, as to have 
 given rise to much discussion on the subject in two leading 
 sporting journals of weekly issue, and to cause the subject 
 to reach important quarters for ventilation and considera- 
 tion. 
 
 I venture, with the utmost diffidence and respectful 
 solicitude, to attempt to tone, if not to educate, the mind of 
 my readers to a harmony with my efforts, by which I would 
 hope for exclusion from the undue weight of preconceived 
 and ineradicable notions arising from strong partiality. I 
 would suggest they calmly received the plaintiff's evidence 
 and his advocate's address, and after weighing all carefully 
 
FOR PEACE AND WAK. 33 
 
 and well, they made up their minds, as they would be 
 supposed to do in a jury box, from pure evidence and fair 
 deductions, rather than from fixed notions upon a basis 
 not in accordance with existing facts, but more as the 
 representative of common report. If I can reasonably 
 show the nobility, gentry, and farmers of this country that 
 notwithstanding there were never at any period finer 
 specimens of the British horse to be found, still, more un- 
 soundness, "weediness," deformity, and scarcity than has 
 previously existed has marked our general horses of late 
 years, I should hope that the fact will be considered, in the 
 face of recent lessons as to the paramount eft'ect of efficient 
 cavalry operations in a campaign, to be sufficiently mo- 
 mentous for the "hereditary legislators " of this country to 
 take in hand and afford that attention and energy to, that 
 any imperial question of similar magnitude and importance 
 should challenge and obtain. 
 
 If in the course of our subject the reader is struck with 
 my directing my attention largely to horse breeding and 
 horses in Ireland, it will be just not to attribute the fact to 
 the nationality of the writer; for my long residence in 
 England, and the accident of my singular profession, " call- 
 ing," or trade, have afforded me so thorough an insight into 
 every phase and bearing of the paddock, the post, and the 
 dealer's operations in England, that an intimate knowledge 
 of the important share that the " Sister Kingdom " bears 
 upon the supply, not only of our military re-mounts, but of 
 the higher class of hunters and other fashionable horses, 
 necessitates a careful review of the facts and circumstances 
 existing in that island with regard to the breeding of 
 horses. Many practical men, through different grades of 
 society there, are friends and acquaintances, who both breed 
 and purchase Irish colts ; and from information of a most 
 direct and reliable character, supported by export evidences 
 
34 England's horses, 
 
 from that country, warrant the assertion that great numbers 
 of the mature horses that find their way into tlie stables of 
 the aristocracy direct, or through the medium of the 
 fashionable dealer, have originally come from Ireland into 
 the hands of " horsey " men in Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, and 
 other localities having the reputation of breeding districts. 
 Therefore I feel that in largely directing my remarks to 
 Ireland, I go to the fountain head of the hunting and 
 cavalry re-mount supply, and it is with these my observa- 
 tions should chiefly be connected. 
 
 Genuine superior horses never rated so high in market 
 quotations as at present ; and it is lamentable to say that 
 this result proceeds as much from the want of supply as 
 from the increased requirements of fashion. There is, un- 
 happily, not only a numerical falling off but a deterioration 
 in power and general soundness of our horses. This is a 
 fact existing and incontrovertible, and no amount of 
 flippant or plausible writing can alter it, although it may 
 mischievously tend to allay public apprehension through 
 that superficial general mistake of taking as correct any- 
 thing written, with a show of authority, about what we do 
 not perfectly understand. "While some deliberate and 
 thinking penman appeals through the medium of widely 
 difi'used columns to the support and sympathy of those 
 classes mainly interested, to take active measures to meet 
 what he knows to be an existing and growing evil, other 
 scribes, whose opportunities do not afford them the same gen- 
 eral means of enquiry, unfortunately glance only at the select 
 specimens of the thoroughbred horse that come under 
 public notice, and point to those examples in a blatant and 
 jubilant strain, as evidences existing to overwhelm any 
 theory that advances a general degeneracy, and an absolute 
 necessity, if the nation desires and requires to keep its 
 horses up to a sound and effective standard, that their 
 
FOR PEACE AND WAR. 35 
 
 propagation and culture should be based upon sound effec- 
 tive princij)les, and not entirely left to the exercise of 
 custom or individual taste. Surely it is not because we see 
 sample horses of the grandest type of form and action — 
 " the poetry of motion " itself — that those desirable qualifi- 
 cations are generally apparent. Look at the supply of 
 candidates for prizes at the different horse shows, and those 
 "judges " whose age and experience can run them back to a 
 quarter of a century ago or more, can tell that for every 
 single show horse, or rather prize horse, now exhibited, 
 many might have been then. Look at our cavalry reo-i- 
 ments — the lancer and hussar ones have smart active 
 animals — seldom complete in numbers ; and the heavy 
 dragoons and artillery inefficiently horsed in quality, power, 
 and numerical strength. Go amongst " the dealers " who 
 supply hacks and harness horses. What represents a 
 majority of their studs ? Foreign importations ! Not from 
 choice, but of necessity ; for they will frankly tell inquirers 
 "there are no horses in the country." Literally, horses are 
 numerous enough, but of that sort which the critical 
 acumen of a good judge would select for the London mar- 
 ket, there is positively an alarming dearth. 
 
 From that once great prolific nursery for England's war 
 horses and fashionable stable, Ireland, comes mainly and 
 materially this heavy national misfortune. The Committee 
 of the Royal Agricultural Society, appointed to enquire 
 into the reported degeneracy of horses, &c., quotes Ireland 
 prominently, because minute enquiries afford returns with 
 full exemplification, not obtainable at present throuo-h- 
 out the great breeding districts of England ; and it is well 
 established that a majority of the superior horses sold out 
 of the great horse breeding districts in England are animals 
 imported from Ireland at an immature age. It is not, then, 
 Her Majesty's Government alone that is interested in the 
 
36 England's horses, 
 
 wellbeing of horse supply and produce in the Sister 
 Kingdom. The gentle being that personifies elegance and 
 grace to the admiring loiterers by the side of Kotten Row 
 on a "full house" day in the height of the season — the 
 acme of attitude and harmony of motion, the bold dragoon, 
 who hopes with a soldier's professional ardour to yet " flesh 
 his maiden sword," the gallant fox hunter, characteristic 
 four-in-hand man, wealthy gentleman, and hard-working 
 tradesman, are all interested individually, as well as from 
 that fine feeling of national pride, so largely pervading the 
 people of this realm, in this all-suggestive and nervous 
 question of degeneracy in numbers and quality of "Eng- 
 land's Horses for Peace and War." 
 
 Few commanding officers of cavalry are more competent 
 than Colonel Baker, to give a practical opinion regarding 
 the question of supply and demand in the horse markets ; 
 and the following extract from a letter, addressed by him 
 so far back as the 18th November, 1863, to the committee 
 appointed by the Royal Agricultural Society to enquire 
 into the subject of degeneracy in the breed of general 
 horses, may be produced here with suggestive warning and 
 interest. He says: — "The deterioration of the breed of 
 horses in Ireland, must be considered as an evident and 
 acknowledged fact ; and it is important that the reason 
 should be traced, and, if possible, arrested. In my opinion, 
 several causes have led to this result : — 
 
 " 1st — The increased demand for horses, of even inferior 
 quality, which has arisen from the large influx of con- 
 tinental buyers. 
 
 " 2nd — The carelessness with regard to brood mares and 
 stallions, which is so general amongst the lower classes of 
 Irish breeders. 
 
 " 3rd — The dearth of good stallions, and the consequent 
 improbability that the poor horse breeder can make use of 
 a superior, but expensive, sire. 
 
FOR PEACE AND WAR. 37 
 
 " 4th — The introduction, generally, of fashionable, rather 
 than sound and useful, blood. My impression is, that this 
 evil admits of only one cure, viz. : — the establishment of a 
 stud of well-selected stallions in each horse-producing 
 county; those horses being held at the service of poor 
 farmers of the district, gratis, for such mares only as might 
 be considered fit to produce superior stock. Annual prizes 
 might be given for the best colts and fillies thus bred. 
 Tliis is the system that has been pursued of late years, both 
 in France and Austria, with the most remarkable results. 
 How the necessary funds are to be ^^rovided is, of course, a 
 difficult question; but the application for a Government 
 grant in aid of so purely national a scheme would, I think, 
 be quite legitimate." 
 
 I have only recently, and accidentally, come across this 
 valuable contribution from so thoroughly practical, ex- 
 perienced, and unselfish an authority. I am glad to quote 
 the Colonel's remarks ; and the circumstances under which 
 they were called forth are worthy of notice, as tending to 
 suggest the rational inference that the importance of the 
 occasion that produced them, and the character of the body 
 to whom they were addressed, would add additional care 
 and deliberation to the forming and utterance of any 
 opinions. And besides, such evidences may very materially 
 aid our efforts in securing the ear and attention of some 
 " hereditary legislator," not too blase, or too superficial, to 
 lend that aid which the accident of position gives him the 
 opportunity to use for public advantage, from the circum- 
 stance of being heard in quarters from which, at least, would 
 be derived the consideration of a very general publicity of a 
 grievance that only requires to be known and accepted 
 generally to be speedily and efficiently redressed. The 
 Royal Commission has gone a considerable length to effec- 
 tuate this object ; but constant twitting will be needful not 
 
38 England's horses, 
 
 to allow the knowledge its efforts has awoke to be veiled 
 from a too frequently hood- winked public. 
 
 To effectually eradicate any evil, it becomes necessary to 
 strike at its root. Therefore, with this incontrovertible 
 axiom before me, it is scarcely necessary to disclaim any 
 crusade against racing and its votaries ; where in en- 
 deavouring to get at that "root," I trench upon the 
 delicately and jealously guarded portals of the turf. Be 
 it therefore borne in mind, that I seek not to travel 
 beyond a lament that the grievances of deterioration in 
 our general horses can unmistakably be traced to the 
 pernicious influence of a weedy and unsound type of 
 horse, that the advent of a different system of racing to 
 that which our ancestors indulged in eventually brought 
 into our Isthmean Arena, to be afterwards most un- 
 fortunately foisted upon a blood-loving public, through the 
 medium of high-sounding and pretentious pedigrees, en- 
 hanced by winning brackets in the records of Weatherhy 
 and Bally. 
 
 To our racing stables we may look for the origin of the 
 cause of complaint as to want of as much bone and sound- 
 ness in the horses of our day for general use as distinguished 
 those of former times ; and to the same source let us turn 
 for an explanation, for from them became scattered over the 
 length and breadth of these kingdoms that bane to the 
 improvement and certain begetter of degeneracy in the 
 British or any other horse; the worn out and unsound 
 racer, who, with contracted disease, false action — promoting 
 and fostering false shapes — and when past all "patching 
 and piecing," is too frequently inducted into those duties of 
 progeniture which all physiological examples teach, should, 
 for improvement and perpetuation of excellence in any 
 breed, be intrusted judiciously and systematically to only 
 the best and jpurest bred males. Surely from no such 
 
FOR PEACE AND WAR. 39 
 
 objectionable or tarnished source can we with any show of 
 reason expect ought but a stream partaking more or less of 
 the parental or primary influence ? Temporarily by some 
 casual counteracting cause it may be rendered delusively 
 pure ; but the foreign ascendancy is not always potent 
 enough to be dominant over the main evil. So is it with 
 attempts to counteract the effects of disease or malformation 
 transmitted by an objectionable stallion ; for a generation 
 or two you may succeed, but, subsequently the latent 
 defects become, as in the source from which they sprung, a 
 prominent deformity. 
 
 We found in the establishment of Royal Plates in the 
 past, when the operations of turfites required a stimulant 
 not afforded them by the opportunities and excitements of 
 our own gambling era, a vastly improved supply of horses of 
 substance and stamina. The money given for these royal 
 plates, with a view to encourage the propagation of blood 
 horses of a superior type, when race-horses were not 
 numerous, and the prizes awaiting their successful efforts 
 moderate, was all fair and legitimate ; but the sums ex- 
 pended for Queen's Plates at the present time could be, 
 in my individual opinion, vastly better employed towards 
 producing an identical object ; and this, too, without 
 interfering with the " national pastime " or its votaries to any 
 appreciable extent. There is sufficient inducement to the 
 disciples of the turf to continue to breed the best they can, 
 irrespective of Her Majesty's Plates, which in no in- 
 stance are now the means of creating those contests which 
 they were inaugurated to engender, and in former times 
 produced. And really any reigning Master of the Horse 
 might have been reasonably expected, in common justice, to 
 have given some careful consideration to this subject, so 
 loud does it call for consideration ; allowing that the duties 
 of many in high places are deemed too onerous or too prose to 
 
40 England's horses, 
 
 admit of more than routine attention, even in exceptional 
 cases crying for redress. The tvirf men have, honestly, no 
 right to complain if the country is awakened to the expe- 
 diency of withholding a national grant, the objects of which 
 their own private system and speculations have positively 
 and absolutely nullified. Those two-year-old races and 
 handicapping have " put the extinguisher " upon any hopes 
 of good being effected by our gracious sovereign's liberal 
 donations to the sustenance and promulgation of horse- 
 breeding. The inducements for finding out the merits of 
 the race-horse at too early an age are so cogent and 
 numerous as to upset the hope of any promising colt or 
 filly being j^reserved from the deleterious system of the 
 training stable until a matured frame and indurated 
 muscles might defy it. And a horse capable of contending 
 for Her Majesty's guineas would be spoiled by a brilliant 
 contest therein for the more paying "game " of winning a 
 handicap, so is generally reserved for that. 
 
 The tissues of a horse are not fully developed until he is 
 six or seven years old, says a well-appreciated veterinary 
 authority, and, therefore, in a tAvo-year-old, must be 
 naturally Aveak and slender ; in proof of which remember 
 that the ends of the bones {E-pJcvphysis) at this age are not 
 joined by long union to the common shaft, rendering 
 them incapable of resisting the tension imposed upon them 
 by the tendons and ligaments, during excessive action. 
 Nothing interferes so much with the wise laws of Nature 
 as early training. It is said that " Nature is ever econo- 
 mical in her means and wise in her ends;" but early training 
 frustrates her "means," and, consequently, defeats her " ends." 
 As in the vegetable kingdom, the seed placed in the ground 
 will not be hurried, but has to pass through many stages 
 before the full ear of corn is developed, so in the animal 
 kingdom, the primary cell has to undergo many changes 
 
FOR PEACE AND WAR. 41 
 
 before it is transformed into the particular tissue for whicli 
 it is destined. Too early training of any kind is productive 
 of incalculable mischief, whether it be mental or physical. 
 It will be found that experience can endorse that every 
 nine animals out of ten submitted as two-year-olds to 
 excessive exertion on the turf never reach the age of five 
 with unimpaired physical powers. The abuse of noble 
 young horses before vigour has established her empire, 
 taxing to the utmost powers which are only artificial and 
 accelerated by a system detrimental to the last degree to 
 the object for which "King's Plates" were first established, 
 is the too patent root of the evil of the want of bone, sub- 
 stance, soundness, and " stoutness," in a large majority of 
 our horses of the present era. 
 
 So long as extended courses and adult horses were 
 the vogue, we find less injury resulting beyond comparison, 
 than the present system of short gallops and immatured 
 animals has been productive of. The abuse and persecu- 
 tion of promising colts and fillies for the gratification of 
 only individual feelings of pride or lucre, is injurious to 
 the beast, lowering to the man, and detrimental to national 
 wealth, glory, and safety ! Ill calculated to do anything 
 but harm to horses, and certainly not elevating to human 
 nature, either morally or socially ; a debasement of a utili- 
 tarian system that had for its pristine object the elevation 
 and progressive improvement of that general horse stock 
 of the British Isles — the pride and glory of the country, 
 and the envy and admiration of the civilized world. That 
 stock once pre-eminent, and that should have remained so 
 to the end of time. Whereas, au contraire, it has sent 
 abroad upon the face of the land the worthless and decrepit 
 stud horses, whose very infirmities render them easy of 
 acquisition, and whom needy speculators have, through a 
 resonant pedigree and other superficial lures, imposed upon 
 
42 England's horses, 
 
 an ignorant and confiding constituency to whom England 
 looks to maintain, in excellence, her supply of " re-mount " 
 and general horses. Verily ! the means justify the end ! ! 
 
FOR PEACE AND WAR. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 The majority of our general horses, we all know, are 
 the off-spring of thoroiiglibred sires. The reason of de- 
 generacy, then, becomes apparent enough. The greatest 
 number, in fact a very great majority, of these stallions 
 are not chosen with regard to the indispensable requisites 
 to success in a country sire, namely, soundness, formation, 
 substance, bone, action, as well as pure blood! Without 
 these desiderata, the purest bred animal that can be pro- 
 duced is valueless as a progenitor of general horses, 
 because imperfect form and such acquired defects as the 
 necessities of the trainer's operations engender are, too 
 frequently, transmitted to the offspring. Of those evils, 
 a decrepit frame, " curbs," " roaring," and " contracted feet," 
 most heavily visit posterity; and what more deleterious 
 evils can scourge the general breeder, and punish, im- 
 poverish, and endanger a nation having so much material 
 wealth embarked in horses, and such grave considerations 
 depending upon a full and useful supply of them. 
 
 If we are only sagacious observers of nature's workings 
 and consistent disciples of her rules, it will require nothing 
 beyond an ordinary degree of perspicuity to discover and 
 adopt the best means of nullifying and overcoming the 
 existing and lamentable products from a pernicious system. 
 
 For example, we see a sire with " curby hocks " and 
 contracted feet, the property of a popular owner, in an Irish 
 
44 England's horses, 
 
 horse-breeding district. This sire has the favours of over 
 one hundred mares in a season ; a majority of his offspring 
 partake in a ratio of three to one of those objectionable 
 quahties that marked their sire. Still the owner, from any 
 cause you please, except the intrinsic worth of his stallion, 
 has gained the suffrages of his neighbours. Things go on 
 so while the horse lives, and, though prudence, common 
 sense, and judgment ought to prevent it, the horse is per- 
 mitted to entail upon posterity defects calculated not only 
 to punish an ignorant constituency, but to help to bring 
 about that national calamity of degeneracy through our 
 middle-class or half-bred horses, under which the country 
 absolutely groans at present. Our position was not less 
 pardonable than serious, being quite unable to keep up 
 the cavalry "strength" in "remounts" at a time when 
 the painful contiguity of dread wars and political compli- 
 cations were calculated to impress reflections productive of 
 a train of thought upon these subjects, that it -is to be 
 hoped in such a country as England, and amongst such a 
 clever, educated, and spirited people, jealous of her hardly 
 and gloriously won supremacy amidst the nations of the 
 globe, will bring about that calm and unbiassed enquiry 
 which anything of such great magnitude, and toucliing 
 upon national interest and honour, should be aAvarded. I 
 fervently cling to the hope, notwithstanding the censurable 
 apathy which exists as to the paramount influence of the 
 sire in propagation, and the unguided or ungoverned 
 exercise of individual judgment and interest in his selec- 
 tion, that out of our present richly earned necessities will 
 arise the future salvation of our general horses, and that 
 good wholesome alarm will enlist public sympathies on the 
 side of those innovators who have sounded the tocsin of 
 alarm, and denounced the deleterious system so long and 
 mischievously adopted generally by breeders of half-bred 
 horses. 
 
FOR PEACE AND WAR. 45 
 
 I read that in the Highland Agricultural Society of Scot- 
 land; was opened an interesting physiological prol^lem as to 
 the relative influence of male and female parent in the 
 propagation of horses, which was propounded in this 
 manner : Whether the breeding of live stock be susceptible 
 of the greatest improvement from the qualities consj)icuous 
 in male or female parents ? A variety of opinions were 
 elicited, and some from names standing very high both as 
 the greatest scientific authorities of the day and as the best 
 practical breeders. 
 
 Mr. Boswell, of Balmuto, was on the side that awards to 
 the male the greatest transmissive power; and after an 
 elaborate investigation concludes ihat he is the parent to 
 which we can alone look, from motives of sense and sound 
 polity, for improvement of any stock. 
 
 A more modified view was taken by Mr. Dallas, of Edin- 
 burgh, who gives his opinion that, while the male is more 
 potent in imprinting external qualities, the female is more 
 influential for those which are internal. Hence he teaches 
 that the sire should be selected for improvement of coat, 
 colour, size, bone, action, and general configuration, and the 
 female for hardihood, and, in fact, all purely constitutional 
 attributes. 
 
 Mr. Christian, of Mull, takes a middle course, and con- 
 tends that the offspring partakes of the qualities of that 
 parent which exerts the strongest influence in formation of 
 the foetus, and recommends the selection on both sides of 
 the best animals of the breed sought to be improved that 
 can be found. That such a theory is a very safe one there 
 can be no doubt ; but it is by no means so convenient in 
 the breeding of gregarious animals as that which allows to 
 the male a preponderating influence. One stallion may 
 beget in one season one hundred foals, while the mare only 
 produces one. Therefore, from such an example we can 
 
46 England's horses, 
 
 argue that one stallion's influence upon posterity is cent, 
 per cent, greater than one mare's. 
 
 Nature, the " universal mother "and unerring law-giver 
 in her own domain, in her untrammelled Avorkings, supports 
 this theory practically, or why should we see in wild flocks 
 and herds that the favours of the females are submissively 
 rendered to that " lord of the harem," who, from superior 
 physical powers and puissance in combat Avith other aspi- 
 rants of his sex and kind, has maintained, by individual 
 power and prowess, a determinedly contested supremacy ? 
 It may be inferred he is the best, or one of the best of the 
 herd he represents, be he stag or stallion, and that, Avas 
 there not some innate influence direct from the Creator 
 that impresses his kind with a lasting homage during the 
 period of his ascendancy, animal nature would suggest re- 
 newed conflict more generally on the part of those indivi- 
 duals that had been worsted in the muscular and nervine 
 contests necessarily preceding the established sway of the 
 reigning lord. For we see an undeflnable laAV, exercising 
 influence under natural administration, to retain in peaceable 
 and undisturbed possession of his offices that male that has 
 proved himself a peer amongst his kind, and Avhose thews, 
 sinews, and pluck have placed him in a proud supremacy, 
 entrusted with the transmission of his species. In the face 
 of such a system, resulting from natural laAvs, Avhat right 
 have we to attempt any digression in application in the 
 propagation of horses for domestic uses and the exigencies 
 of war. No doubt it was a similar course of observation 
 and train of reasoning that suggested to the late Rev. J. H. 
 Berry to record that.- only one rational course can he 
 adopted by breeders, viz., that of resorting to the best male, 
 "a simple efficacious mode of improving such stock as 
 required improvement, and the only proceeding by which, 
 stock already good, can be preserved in excellence." 
 
FOR PEACE AND WAR. 47 
 
 The well-known examples of those hybrids, between the 
 male pony and female ass and vice versa, are very conclu- 
 sive evidence as to the preponderating influence of the 
 male parent in transmitting external organization and 
 appearances to posterity. 
 
 ' May it not, with every show of reason and example then, 
 be deduced that male influence in propagation of gregarious 
 animals is paramount ? Such, doubtless, is the case ; but 
 the contrary is a vulgar belief ; and the general breeders of 
 half-bred horses imagine that a good mare may be put with 
 impunity to any stallion, boasting in his escutcheon a long 
 hst of ancestral " flyers " of the turf, not knowing or caring 
 whether he or they were defective in those material points 
 from the propagation of which alone can success and satis- 
 faction attend upon horse-breeding as individual specula- 
 tion, or for the possible period of a great national necessity. 
 
 Granting, then, for argument's sake, if you do not from 
 complete conviction — or, probably, from the native insular 
 instinct of calling a thing or system right because one is 
 and has been used to it — the preponderating influence of 
 the male parent amongst gregarious animals in transmitting 
 their individual form and characteristics to their descen- 
 dants, and it being incontestable that bad qualities are as 
 easily, or, indeed, much more easily transmitted than good 
 ones — for " ill weeds grow apace " — does it not impress 
 those interested in the subject Avith the very grave import- 
 ance of having that source from which good or evil must, 
 as a natural consequence, flow, of such character and merit 
 as will insure beneficial instead of deleterious and degene- 
 rating results ? Surely yes. And all will admit that 
 care, judgment, and forethought must be invariably used 
 in selecting any stallion to improve stock, and that he 
 should be not only full of good qualities, but free from bad 
 ones. For it cannot be too forcibly impressed upon horse 
 
48 England's horses, 
 
 breeders that, from the constantly recurring examples in 
 this species of breeding of offspring " throwing back " even 
 to remote ancestors, it is wise to go beyond the appearance 
 and qualities of the immediate stallion about to be selected, 
 and be satisfied as to the soundness and general merits of 
 his ancestors ; for, unfortunately, the good or bad points of 
 an ancestor, though not represented in, say a son or grand- 
 son, may flash forth in a further removed progeny. Hence, 
 in breeding, the rule supreme is, " like begets like or the 
 likeness of soone ancestor ; " and the purer the blood the 
 more forcibly will the characteristics of the individual 
 animal disseminating it be marked upon offspring, always, 
 nevertheless, allowing to the male the superior influence in 
 such particulars. 
 
 Imperfect sires beget imperfect stock. Foreign compe- 
 tition and the requirements of breeders for turf purposes, 
 monopolize those sires that, properly placed through 
 England's great nursery, Ireland, would be of great service 
 in regenerating that class of horse, the very aspect, charac- 
 ter, and qualifications of which are largely departed within 
 recent years. There are a few honourable exceptions, but it 
 may be excepted as a suggestive and unpromising fact, that 
 the majority of stallions available to the great bulk of Irish 
 horse breeders are effete, unsound, and highly objectionable 
 outcasts of the racing stables, too defective to be used in 
 propagation of their own order, and inferior in those 
 material attributes of soundness, " quality," bone, and action 
 that would render them an object of notice to the clever 
 foreign buyers who always hang about the English horse 
 markets. It is notorious that for the last twenty-five years 
 or more, colonels of cavalry regiments, contractors for re- 
 mount supplies to our cavalry and artillery, veterinary 
 surgeons, and painstaking penmen have been publicly 
 registering experiences tending to exhibit, with a view to 
 
FOR PEACE AND WAR. 49 
 
 correction, shortness of supply in numbers as well as a large 
 and increasing foiling off of those " wear and tear " charac- 
 teristics of a former period in respect of " Our Cavalry Re- 
 mounts and General Horses." 
 
 In Ireland, so prolific a nursery of that half-bred stock 
 from which military horses are derived, the effects from in- 
 discriminate and untutored breeding, continued with certain 
 influences dependent upon political changes within the last 
 quarter century, have made a very serious and sad alteration 
 in the quantity and character of horse supply ; so much so 
 that it is alarming to think existing facts in that kingdom, 
 in connexion with the subject under notice, have onl\' 
 recently led to Government enquiry. For I am grieved to 
 say, though in India the very same question of re-mount 
 horses should be deemed of sufficient importance to have, 
 long ago, a carefully constituted Government Board of 
 Inquiry established to " investigate and report," that at 
 home a perplexing and detestable apathy seems to have too 
 long prevailed on the subject, although existing grievances 
 in this department of national economy shriek for redress. 
 Yearly recurring evils, long admitted as existing, are per- 
 mitted by the apathy or want of sympathy in the matter by 
 successive Governments, to run their poisonous and de- 
 generating course ; sowing a seed of carelessness and 
 ignorance, year after year, that has rendered in due season 
 an inevitable crop of loss, — individual and national — dis- 
 appointment, and disgust. 
 
 The proneness of Englishmen to put great faith in their 
 insular position and hereditary means of defence against 
 invasion, may be one cause for apathy upon a subject that 
 has so largely influenced the operations of two great 
 military continental powers so recently in fearful conflict. 
 While England has been doing nothing to systematize the 
 means for producing her " re-mount " horses, both Ger- 
 
50 ENGLAND S HORSES, 
 
 many and France have devoted judgment, forethought, and 
 lavish expenditure to the economy and improvement of 
 liorse breeding. The lesson taught to other European 
 powers by the glorious exploits of German cavalry in 
 tlie recent Franco-Germanic war, and the great influence 
 brought to bear upon the campaigns by cavalry operations, 
 are too patent and potent to be lost upon any power that 
 may one day be called upon, from any circumstances, to 
 uphold principle, policy, political or individual safety by 
 force of arms. Can England say that she is exempt from 
 such a possibility ? If from the records of the past we do 
 not draw inferences and lessons to be turned to advantage 
 in the present, we can only admit that we have drifted into 
 that apathetic spirit that actuated older and equally great 
 powers in their own time, and that so surely heralded their 
 decadence and fall. Let us hope that the shock of conflict- 
 ing nations still ringing in our ears and appalling our 
 outraged senses, even by memory of the sad events, may be 
 strongly suggestive that the days are not yet come in 
 Avhich a false security, begat by long exemption from the 
 evils of active war, ought to justify the sword being forged 
 into the ploughshare, nor any one thing that can contribute 
 to the strength of the British nation in the time of active 
 strife, being neglected or overlooked. 
 
 If Germany and France have, through our open horse 
 markets and ports, had the cream of our best half-bred 
 mares for many years — the very choicest seed for our own 
 crop* of military horses — their recent quarrel has largely 
 benefited the future of horse breeding in the British Isles, 
 if any prompt steps are taken for the supply of judiciously 
 selected stallions throughout horse breeding districts. 
 
 * Note. — Observe in a quotation from Mb. Edmund Tatteksall, farther on, 
 we have the startling fact that from tn-o ports alone, in this country, 14,000 
 of our best mares have gone to the foreigners in seven years ! 
 
FOR PEACE AND WAR. 51 
 
 Many thousands of most objectionable mares have been 
 sent away to fill up the devastated ranks of the French 
 cavalry. Everything now combines to point out the present 
 time as opportune for any effort having for its object 
 Governmental supervision or assistance to the great liorse 
 breeding districts, in Ireland chiefly. 
 
52 ENGLAND'S HORSES. 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 It will readily be remembered that about twenty years ago 
 an act of the legislature entitled " The Irish Incumbered 
 Estates Act, &c.," was instrumental in introducing into that 
 country many English and Scotch farmers. The small 
 fields and light scratchy husbandry of the old native system 
 happily fled before the innovatory lesson of the new comers. 
 Their heavy agricultural carts, ploughs, and other agrarian 
 implements, if calculated to so much advance farming 
 interests, had a materially opposite effect upon the far- 
 famed breed of Irish half-bred horses. Ireland being 
 essentially a tillage country, the size and capacity for 
 draught and burthen of her horses had a dominant influence 
 upon the character of her implements of husbandry that 
 were to be worked by horse-power. For the increased 
 burthens produced by the imported system of agriculture it 
 was considered that a weightier and more cumbrous animal 
 than the native half-bred, active Irish horse was necessary ; 
 and in the plenitude of unbridled ignorance the convenient 
 but ruinous expedient was hit upon of crossing upon Irish 
 mares — so noted for a laro^e infusion through various 
 channels of the purest Eastern blood — huge Clydesdale 
 and other ponderous horses. The natural offspring of such 
 a union all physiologists can quickly define. A nondescript 
 brute with a heterogeneous mixture of parts ; a large head 
 Upon a blood-hke neck — a huge elephantine carcase upon 
 
FOR PEACE AND WAR. 53 
 
 insufficient limbs, covered with a coarse and long liair, and 
 quite unequal to the effective carrying of such a super- 
 incumbent mass; weight they got, no doubt, but without 
 strength, action, or spirit. For in these instances, as in all 
 others, where there is a sudden attempt made in breeding ; 
 as to size, the effort will be found to end in a colt or filly 
 made without a due proportion of parts, and, therefore, 
 more or less awkward or unAvieldy. If our Government 
 was fully instructed as to the unsettled, indiscriminate, and 
 fatal system — or no system rather — that prevails amongst 
 the Irish farmers who so largely breed horses that enter 
 the ranks of our cavalry; and would investigate this 
 subject through the ample means of information open to it, 
 I think the silent but forcible monitors of facts and figures 
 upon the character and standard of supply now, as com- 
 pared with the past, would be productive, of necessity, of 
 the happiest results. The leaders and law-givers of England 
 are far too prescient and wise to ignore from any cause a 
 great national shame and grievance, calling for the 
 promptest attention and reform. This recent great war 
 on the continent having most fortunately for the future 
 interests of horse-breeding and of the English cavalry 
 opened up a means of absorption for those defective mares 
 that have since the introduction of a new proprietary in 
 Ireland been too largely scattered through the island, bear- 
 ing a most objectionable "bar sinister;" the apropos 
 opportunity should not be allowed to pass without a 
 warning to England not to let slij:) the time for a national 
 effort at regeneration of our general horses at a period that 
 the accident of circumstances and the operations arising 
 therefrom have most fortunately left open for utilization. 
 This indiscriminate mating of unsuitable "crosses" and 
 unguided or ungoverned operations in breeding by Irish 
 farmers must, somehow, be altered, or, the too patent 
 
54 England's horses, 
 
 sad causes resulting from pursuance of tlie system must too 
 surely be endured in the hour of need and trial, should 
 such ever arrive. A mode, plain, simple, and effective, must 
 be adopted to place within public reach the only true and 
 reliable means of improvement — carefulli/ and judiciously/ 
 selected stallions. As all the native Irish mares have got a 
 sufficient infusion of good blood in their veins, to render a 
 few years persistence in this course jiroductive of even 
 greater results than those which have, from a similar system 
 adopted on the continent, at present left the English mar- 
 kets mainly dependent upon the importation of Prussian, 
 Hungarian, Russian, and other foreign animals, for the 
 supply of high-class harness and riding horses, improved 
 character of produce would result, and command higher 
 prices, affording the best premium that can bo offered a 
 community to " go and do likewise." It has been stated 
 that beef-growing in Ireland was superseding the old 
 'penchant for horse-breeding. I think I can show that any 
 falling off in the numerical supply from that country pro- 
 ceeds from a different cause or causes. No ! Paddy is no 
 beef-grower from choice. He'd sooner see his four -year-old 
 colt figure prominently in the local farmers' steeplechase, or 
 jump the " Pound Wall" at Ballin-a-sloe fair, and be greeted 
 by the wild, mad, exultant cheer of his admiring fellows 
 than carry away ten times over the brightest award that 
 successful competition places at the disposal of the cattle 
 feeder. 
 
 I have undertaken to make an effort to show that the 
 numerical decrease in Ireland's horse supply of late years 
 did not proceed, as has been somewhere by a recent writer 
 suggested, from a partiality on behalf of the native Irish 
 for beef-growing, consequent on increased high prices in 
 that commodity. Possibly statistics or other pertinent 
 modes of investigation would offer a i^rima facie case, at 
 
FOR PEACE AND WAR. 55 
 
 present in support of sucli a tlieoiy ; but, I think, a shal- 
 low dip beneath the surface Avill fix the changes in those 
 matters of decreased horse supply and advanced beef rais- 
 ing in Ireland to the consequences brought about from the 
 inexorable necessities attendant upon comparatively recent 
 legislative enactments and contingent changes, rather than 
 from any deficienc}^ of taste in horsebreeding or want of 
 faith in returns therefrom. 
 
 Within the last quarter of a century, not only has the 
 entire aspect of the most fertile portions of Ireland under- 
 gone a singularly beneficial change, but also much of the 
 rough and waste lands that afforded good horse pasturage 
 have, under the reclamatory influence of draining and sub- 
 soiling, become rich pastures, suited to the occupation, 
 tastes, and habits of the English and Scotch settlers of 
 recent advent, whom the operations of the " Incumbered 
 Estates Act " brought amongst us, owners and workers of 
 Irish land. 
 
 For a period extending far into the past, up to about the 
 last twenty years, a vast expanse of agricultural area of 
 acres in Ireland was mapped and plotted out into an 
 infinity of small " holdings." They varied from the cottier's 
 " half acre of garden " to the " strong farmer's " homestead, 
 with its appanage of from fifty acres upwards. But the 
 majority of the land was noted for the disparity of its 
 pasturable fields to those undergoing the culture of the potato 
 and cereal growing population. 
 
 Like all lands remarkable for fecundity, the dwellers on 
 the soil were characterised by a much less beneficial and 
 (.lesirable style of agricultural economy than that which 
 marks the operations of the inhabitants in more sterile 
 lands. The natives of Scotland form an example of this 
 theory, as do those of Italy, Greece, and Ireland. Where 
 " Mother Nature " is most prolific and bountiful, there will 
 be found unsystematic and improvident sons of toil. 
 
56 ENGLAND'S HORSES, 
 
 The uneconomic and wasteful system of very small 
 fields — originated as the necessity of farming operations 
 upon a minute scale by a numerous and poor agricultural 
 population — A¥as the first gi-eat objection in the disposition 
 of the land that attracted the recent Scotch and English 
 settlers under the disinheriting edict of the court in 
 Henrietta Street, Dublin. 
 
 The system j)ursued to alter the face of things in this 
 respect is well and generally appreciated in Ireland, and is 
 possibly understood in England and elsewhere. The old 
 aristocracy of the kingdom, careless and unfrugal as 
 the wretched retainers under their feudal rule, designated 
 tenants, in painfully rare instances appreciated the ob- 
 jectionable state of their land under such an improvident 
 and helpless dispensation as that within the command of 
 the poor " small farmers," and the very wretched cottier 
 tenants with their " little plot o' land." 
 
 The exodus from Ireland at this period, and through the 
 subsequent years of its depopulation, was mainly caused 
 by the improvement system that had for its object the 
 advanced farming code, the application of which, up to the 
 present, has eventuated in substituting oxen and sheep for 
 men and horses, or, in more remarkable terms, heef and 
 mutton for soldiers and " re-mounts." I call attention only 
 to facts, attempted deductions might fail to effect by my 
 pen that which, through reflection of my readers, may be 
 brought about. 
 
 Tlie light and superficial husbandry adopted and pursued 
 by the Irish people (I speak generally) up to the time of the 
 extensive confiscation by tlie hammer of the auctioneer, 
 necessitated large assistance from horse-power. Limestone 
 and " culem " (small coal for burning the stone to lime) had 
 to be drawn, the fields had to be ploughed, harrowed, and 
 rolled, turf had to be drawn from the neighbouring bog, 
 
FOR PEACE AND WAR. 57 
 
 hay, corn, potatoes, and roots carted home in due season. 
 From the agricultm-al operations upon that scale which 
 were formerly general in Ireland, horse labour was, of 
 necessity, inseparable ; whereas, in dealing with big fields 
 and large farms of later growth, steam-power, aided by the 
 labour of heavy imported horses, has preference, and is, of 
 late years, adopted by those who had experienced its value 
 in their own countries, and by those in Ireland who have 
 had the Avisdom and opportunity to follow a commendable 
 example. 
 
 The native Irish farmers, like the Arabs, were predis- 
 posed to the possession of mares; for, while discharging 
 some duty of draught or burthen to her owners, she was, 
 as a rule, either rearing a foal, or " in a fair way to become 
 a mother" — more frequently both. It was thus that a 
 prodigious horse supply from such an area of land, and so 
 poor a population, was formerly derived from Ireland. 
 With the advent of new systems, that necessitated the 
 demolition of little homesteads and small tillage farms, and 
 the expatriation of their ruined inmates under "the arrange- 
 ment system," that afforded the means of transport to 
 America, or the more stern and cruel operations of eviction 
 by the Sheriff" and his myrmidons, came two great blows to 
 the thews and sinews of Old England in time of war — loss 
 of men, who made, at least, brave soldiers, and with them the 
 necessity and opportunity that kept her cavalry and artillery 
 "remount" supply in that state of efficiency that drew forth 
 the envy and encomiums of civilized Europe. May not 
 we, therefore, infer that the falling off" in the number of 
 horses produced in Ireland, and the increased supply of 
 beef from that country, is a state of things derivable from 
 the change in affairs I have endeavoured to depict, rather 
 than from a preference for beef producing, as the more 
 remunerative of the two. It is obvious that cattle feeding 
 
58 England's horses, 
 
 becomes a necessity of large pasturable tracts of land ; as 
 liorse labour is of small agricultural, or tillage, farms, and 
 that, where on the former a comparatively unemployed, or 
 AvhoUy idle lot of mares, could not be calculated upon to 
 pay so steady and safe a return as beef, still, in the latter 
 kind of farming, where the mares' work goes against ex- 
 penses of their keep, and where the character of the farms 
 ■was not commensurate with cattle raising, the Irish horse 
 breeder was urged into a congenial, and, under his peculiar 
 circumstances, remunerative system of horse breeding, for 
 which, however, so great an oj^portunity no longer exists. 
 The fewer horses, and more extended beef supply, from 
 Ireland, is simply consequent upon an altered state of rural 
 economy there, brought about by Acts of the Legislature 
 of England in recent years, and not upon any want of a 
 continuance of the native taste for horse breeding, or faith 
 in its remunerative results. 
 
 Let the Irish, even yet, be only directed through their 
 poverty and scrupulous economy in such matters, to the 
 adoption of reasonably supplied government stallions, 
 from which a desirable progeny may naturally be antici- 
 pated, and England will need not expensive government 
 studs for her military requirements, provided some efficient 
 steps are taken for securing to the Government the offspring 
 of their own outlay and exertions, which the present 
 unpenalized state of export in horses, and the facilities for 
 competition ottered foreigners, is entirely opposed to. Our 
 Continental neighbours cannot grumble, as in all cases ot 
 emergency affecting horse supply abroad, means are resorted 
 to, to prevent and cripple exportation as much as possible, 
 where it is not entirelv interdicted. 
 
FOR PEACE AND WAR. 59 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 The observations, with which I close the foregoing remarks, 
 must be taken to mean that though the native taste for 
 horse breeding in Irehxnd would be fostered and stimulated 
 to a great extent by the promising and encouraging hopes 
 that a cheap and facile use of desirable sires would give ; 
 nevertheless the changes to which I have pointed in the 
 rural economy of that land, will now largely operate to 
 render numerical returns in horse supply painfully less, at 
 the same time that the quality will be largely improved. 
 
 With very prose facts staring the country in the face, 
 that no logic or sophistry can soundly argue, or fallaciously 
 reason away, regarding our alarming position, and when it 
 has been proved by practical results amongst the great 
 military nations of Europe that Government supervision 
 has been a success where tried, it then no longer becomes 
 a question of principle, but of coin. 
 
 It appears from the report of the " Select Committee," 
 appointed upon Lord Rosebery's motion in the House of 
 Lords, by which it was hoped not only to find out evils but 
 to suggest a remedy for them if discovered, that they did 
 not take into their consideration the influence had upon 
 general horses from which our re-mounts are derived, by the 
 present system of " short-cut " racing with flying cripples, 
 sj^lendid "roarers," and immature youngsters. Nor did 
 they deal in any practical way wnth the cavalry supply 
 
60 . England's horses, 
 
 question, considering the subject — as under existing circum- 
 stances it is— merged in the larger one of the general horse 
 supply of these kingdoms. Their not having done so would, 
 at any rate, have had no material effect ; for it is patent to 
 the public that the source from which we can alone expect 
 to derive the progenitors of our general horse supply in 
 excellence, has, by a stimulus of quite a foreign kind 
 to the utilitarian efforts of the general breeders, and from 
 influences that preponderate in the minds of the majority of 
 those who now sustain the turf, improved and maintained 
 the thoroughbred horse. What the aims and ends of those 
 who have done and continue to do this has nothing to do 
 with the present enquiry. The fact remains to us, that at 
 no previous period of the horse's history in these kingdoms 
 has our thoroughbred been so grand. Blair Athol (sold 
 for over 12,000 guineas to an English stud), and Favonius, 
 another Derby winner, we may assert, without fear of con- 
 tradiction, are as finely modelled horses and as good per- 
 formers as can be desired. But these are "the plums of the 
 pudding," as are likewise the numerous stallions offered for 
 the favours of high-bred stud matrons. Such horses, or 
 their class, are far removed from the channel in which their 
 individual services would benefit the general breeder ; and 
 he is thrown back upon, too often, the " cheap and nasty." 
 
 The Great Dictator of the Turf, as the Honourable 
 Admiral Rous has been long dubbed, to a devotion of a life- 
 time to everything that could impart improvement and 
 stability to the great institution over which he has long 
 exercised so efficient and popular a sway, adds in his dis- 
 pensations, the exercise of an intellect singularly keen and 
 more than ordinarily well-cultured, in even that patrician 
 order to which he belongs. Upon the subject of The 
 English Racehorse where can we look for a better or 
 more thoroughly practical opinion. His edicts on that 
 
FOR PEACE AND WAR. Gl 
 
 particular branch of our subject will liave the weight and 
 respect they merit from all students of our present diffi- 
 culty in equine affairs, but must be taken cumgrano sails in 
 certain particulars where the gallant gentleman allows 
 enthusiasm for a sport and system, of which he is the puta- 
 tive parent, to run away with common sense. He writes : — 
 
 " My belief is that the present English Racehorse is as 
 much superior to the racehorse of 1750 as he was to the 
 first cross from Arabs and Barbs with English mares ; and, 
 again, as they were to the old English racing hack of 1650, 
 The 'form' of Flying Childers might now win a £30 
 plate, ' winner to be sold for £40.' Highflyer and Eclipse 
 might pull through in a £50 plate, ' winner to be sold for 
 £200.' This may be a strong opinion, but it is founded on 
 the fact that whereas 150 years ago the Eastern horses and 
 their first ' cross ' were the best and fastest in England, at 
 this day a second-class racehorse can give five stone to the 
 best Arabian or Barb, and beat them from one to twenty 
 miles. I presume, therefore, that the superiority of the 
 English horse has improved in that ratio above the original 
 stock." 
 
 Such are " the Admiral's " own words ; and as far as the 
 pace, weight-carrying ability, and staying powers of the 
 best type of the modern racer are treated in his remarks, 
 there is nothing of sophistry, and his assumed facts can 
 only, with justice, be regarded as a fair analogical deduc- 
 tion from the incontestable premises he adduces. 
 
 Before Lord Rosebery's Committee, on the 19th of May, 
 1873, we have Admiral Rous, saying : — 
 
 " The stature of thoroughbred stock has increased since the 
 year 1700 an inch every 25 years, and whereas the average 
 size of horses then was 13 hands 3 inches, the average is 
 now 15 hands 2 inches, and they can carry twice as much 
 weight as 100 years ago. Our Enghsh thorough-bred horses 
 
62 ENGLAND'S HORSES, 
 
 are the best in the world. There is nothing equal to them, 
 as long as a thorough-bred horse can give five or six stone 
 to an Arab, I do not care what the Arab is." 
 
 This is all very Avell, but we can never forget that the 
 first step in the rising of the ladder to the proud pre- 
 eminence which the English blood horse, and those of other 
 countries, derived from him, hold in every arena of sport, 
 fashion, or war, is remotely due to our Eastern importa- 
 tions of Arab and Barb. Though this is admitted on all 
 hands, the idea of again having recourse to the sons of the 
 desert as harem lords is by no means generally popular ; 
 and so far as the primary consideration of the male in re- 
 production goes, the Englishman and his fellow Britons 
 having brought their own horse to the highest state of 
 perfection and ascendancy as illustrated in the sound short- 
 legged class of race horse that we find to-day, not by any 
 means so scarce as biased detractors of the turf are bitterly 
 prone to urge. We naturally look upon the perfect horse 
 of these islands as the improvement upon the improver in 
 our horse stock, and the siimmum bonum of all that is 
 excellent in his kind, and will not adopt the theories so 
 ably and logically urged in favour of the great-hearted, 
 hardy, and indomitable aristocrat of the desert. Indomit- 
 able under the conditions to which the climatic and other 
 influences in his sphere of action submit him. Nor need 
 we do so, whether it is a desirable move or not towards 
 effecting the maintenance of our horses up to their present 
 standard. Let us take care only that the breeders of our 
 general and re-mount horses are not necessarily compelled 
 to supply us from polluted, objectionable, and degenerating 
 sources at home. Be careful that they are aflbrded the 
 best seed for producing a sound and desirable crop. At 
 present the vast majority of country sires, standing at 
 prices such as breeders of general horses would pay, are the 
 
FOR PEACE AND WAR. 63 
 
 mere offscourings of the racing stables — animals too in- 
 ferior to be entrusted with the propagation of youngsters 
 upon which large private interests would be staked ; but, 
 alas ! deemed eligible for the production of stock, on the 
 supply of which, in purity and excellence, the strength of 
 our country may at an unknown, but possible period, 
 depend largely. 
 
 So long as the choice of stallions remains free to caprice, 
 parsimony, or want in judgment in private individuals, there 
 can be no such guarantee of a derivative benefit as that which 
 would be insured by the laws of nature, if, by a wise legisla- 
 tive enactment, the duty of providing in high excellence the 
 sires of the country either devolved upon the Government, 
 or, as a modification of interference, that it was enacted 
 that no stallion should be maintained for re-productive pur- 
 poses unlicensed by Government. We may assume that 
 men fully competent would be appointed to the arduous 
 posts of inspection of districts, and that no local feeling or 
 influence, or mere mercenary motives would be allowed to 
 govern their judgment. Until some such wise economy is 
 indulged, we never can be assured that the defective stal- 
 lions expelled from the turf from being unsound will not, 
 in accordance with the inexorable laAV of " like begets like," 
 go on, year by year, sowing deeper and wider the most 
 potent means of degeneracy in form, action, constitutional 
 and physical power throughout our general horses. 
 
 Blood is desirable and necessary in our stallions; but 
 shapes and action are two great essentials; choose these 
 with good bone, and special attention to wind, eyes, and 
 feet ; and having regard to the natural laws that regulate 
 such matters, we shall as undoubtedly derive the happy 
 results of our forethought and reasonable action, as that 
 from a pure source will flow a clear and wholesome stream ; 
 and, vice versa. 
 
64 England's horses, 
 
 It is admitted that we require some amendment in tlie 
 system that now supervenes amongst breeders of our gene- 
 ral horses. Nobody denies this, that is capable of forming 
 a practical opinion upon the subject ; and, therefore, Ave 
 may rely upon it that horse-loving England will never 
 allow a canker such as this to eat its way into the very core 
 of her physical strength. 
 
 There is a danger that legislative enactment, perfectly 
 reasonable and imperative, regarding the general horse 
 stock of these kingdoms, would lose its popularity, and 
 become quite obnoxious, if it attempted anything like a 
 sweeping and coercive turf reform. And as the turf ca,n, 
 by selection, supply for years to come the sound and 
 beautiful general stock horses that the country will need, I 
 had almost made up my mind to avoid allusion to subjects, 
 the discussion of which is impatiently endured and petu- 
 lantly assailed, in quarters where personal partial feeling is 
 allowed to over-ride the consideration of public weal. 
 
 That the English turf has risen to its present importance, 
 as a national institution, under the segis of a utilitarian 
 aim, having for its object the improvement of the general 
 horse stock, is an axiomatic assertion. Let us glance, 
 then, at how it has performed its mission, by what means 
 improvement was attained, and what are the existing 
 defects of the system, that are supposed to re-act in an 
 inverse ratio to that, from the operation of which we have 
 arrived at a very great state of improvement in our stock. 
 
 All my individual sympathies are with the turf\ I am an 
 habitu4 of its various arenas for more than a quarter of a 
 century; and, if all this world could afford mortal, was placed 
 at my disposal, I must in truth say, if the opportunity of 
 paying my humble share of devotion to our great Isthmean 
 Idol was withheld, I should not be anything like content. 
 Therefore, it may be assumed that what I may write hostile 
 
FOR PEACE AND WAR. 65 
 
 to its operations, is produced entirely from a sense of public 
 duty, and an affectionate and conscientious belief, that in 
 using the knife it is only in the earnest hope that the 
 operation may tend to lead to a wholesome cure. 
 
 A nebulistic assertion in a recent letter of Admiral Rous, 
 where danger, from no given cause, to the prospects of the 
 turf is announced, is an admission of internal decay, or 
 general deteriorating action, very painfully suggestive to 
 all well-wishers to " the national pastime." 
 
 We may, from authentic records and traditionary asser- 
 tion assume that, though at no time in turf history 
 were there such fine specimens of good and grand thorough- 
 breds; neither used there to be, some years back, anything 
 like the vast numbers of unsound racehorses — wretched 
 abortions, and spindle-shanked deformities — as may be now 
 seen in the training stables of the country. 
 
 Can we, if we are rational beings, for one moment fail to 
 deduce from given and patent facts, the perfect solution to 
 this state of things. Let us regard the past asj)ect of 
 affairs, and the introduction of a new era, that made its 
 advent with that deplorable system of handicapping, from 
 which, and short-cut racing, we may be enabled to show 
 the present lamentable want of soundness and stoutness 
 may be traced. 
 
 Nearly everybody knows that the traditions of the turf, 
 and the annals of Weatherby convey to us the assurance of 
 more bone, power, and stamina in thoroughbreds during the 
 regime of the ancient system of severe contests, and weight 
 for age, penalties and allowances, over severe course^, than 
 we can now, in a general way, find. It is obvious that 
 under such conditions it would be quite useless to maintain 
 in training anything not able to compete on comparatively 
 equal terms with its opponents under heavy weights, and 
 cruelly severe ordeals of long distance heats. The obvious 
 
66 England's horses, 
 
 induction is, that if the intensity of the operations was severe, 
 the integrity of the original object of the turf was main- 
 tained. That object being the propagation and culture of 
 the sound and stout. But all that were bred and trained 
 were not of this calibre, and consequently useless for racing 
 under the then existing system. This state of things kept 
 the ownership of race horses in the hands of noblemen and 
 gentlemen of mark and merit in the land. They did not 
 regard the sport and the sustainment of their studs in a com- 
 mercial or grovelling pecuniary spirit. They raced because 
 men in their position raced, and because they felt in sup- 
 porting the turf they were abetting one of our greatest 
 national bulwarks. Under this system there were no 
 complaints of want of bone, weight-carrying power, and 
 stamina, in the thoroughbred stallions who, after their turf 
 career, began to exercise the offices of sires through country 
 districts for the begetting of general and military horses. 
 Those of their fellows that were too slow for racing, being 
 fine-grown strong horses, were subjected to emasculation 
 and drafted to some of the purposes of saddle or harness 
 work ; so that, an operation which now the weedy and 
 weakly off-casts of the turf are not thought worth, in former 
 days and with a more useful class of animal reduced the 
 number of thoroughbred stallions down to a narrower and 
 more select compass than in our day. 
 
 The creation of handicaj)ping was a fell blow, at any rate, 
 to that object for which the government, or monarch, had sub- 
 scribed Royal Plates — inducement to breed horses the best 
 calculated to carry weight and stay over courses of e:3^cep- 
 tional severity. Handicapping in its object, was, perhaps, as 
 perfect a means of negativing this intention as ingenuity and 
 experience could devise. It may be desirable to explain that 
 by the term " handicapjoing " is meant a system of estima- 
 ting and penalizing the capacity of race horses according to 
 
FOR PEACE AND WAR. 67 
 
 their relative ages and performances, and by a distribution, 
 by an authority styled a handicapper, of different weights 
 according to the assumed ability to race of each intending 
 competitor ; giving the %vor8t as well as the best a chance of 
 winning. It is supererogatory to add, that, in view of such 
 an innovation many " weeds " and " wastrels " were fostered 
 and preserved from their speed for long or short distances 
 under light weights, that would have no chance in the old 
 style of racing, as above described. This then was " the 
 beginning of the end." For one fine-grown, sound, weight- 
 carrying and long-running race-horse to be found to-day, an 
 abominably great number of unsound, " weedy," half-milers, 
 or four-furlong shadows can be polled. The fact is, our 
 needs in any great popular undertaking beget our required 
 instruments. Handicapping required bad horses to sustain 
 its purpose, and that we have them now is sufficiently illus- 
 trated by the very table of entries for the handicap races of 
 this Spring (1874). The five great handicap races of the 
 Spring and early Summer are the The Great Northamp- 
 tonshire Stakes, the Newmarket Handicap, the City and 
 Suburban, the Metropolitan, and the Chester Cup. For 
 these important events, over sufficiently long courses to test 
 the staying powers of any race horse, there is a suggestive 
 deficiency in the numerical entries Avhen compared with a 
 short distance handicap at Lincoln — one mile — of an earlier 
 date for decision than any of them. That got one hundred 
 and fifty-nine entries, while the Chester Cup — a race of great 
 popularity with the public — has got no more than eighty 
 intending competitors for its two miles and two furlongs 
 essay. And we may draw more food for contemplation from 
 the recorded facts that we never have, in our day, the same 
 strong entries for long distance handicaps that we have for 
 short ones ; avowedly from the great scarcity of race- 
 horses capable of successfully covering a long distance 
 
68 England's horses, 
 
 course. If we have a few such horses contending in such 
 races, what happens them ? Their superior merit brings 
 them to the front, which causes them to be penalized with 
 weight in some subsequent contest, sufficient to have victory 
 snatched from them by some miserable " plating " cripple. 
 " We cannot gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles !" 
 Neither can we expect the sound and stout race-horse to be 
 propagated as the rule, not the exception, from such means. 
 Admiral Rous, in writing upon the subject we have 
 under consideration, has evidenced the performances of 
 steeple-chase horses in the present day as exemplifying the 
 solidity of his anti-degeneracy theory. " The Admiral " is 
 80 fond of seizing upon singular examples to bolster up 
 his untenable generalities, that, I think, independent of a 
 wish not to appear personally hostile in my writing to one 
 so deservedly liked and respected, I can give strong support 
 to my antagonistic opinions, by wielding, through the facile 
 means of a long quotation, a more trenchant force than 
 any individual opinion could bring to bear. In an admi- 
 rable article from the Field newspaper of Saturday, March 
 14, 1874, we read the following : — 
 
 " Noticeably enough, at just about the very same time when 
 the gentlemen sportsmen were protesting in the Vale last week 
 against the Grand National Hunt line as being too big and stiff, 
 the Grand National Hunt Committee was issuing a protest on 
 its own account. The owners or managers of horses at Ayles- 
 bury would not run because they considered the country to be 
 dangerously strong, whereas the committee considers the country 
 as too often adopted now-a-days to be dangerously weak ; ' the 
 manner in which lessees of courses have lowered and cut down 
 fences during the last few seasons is most detrimental to steeple- 
 chasing;' and, again, the committee begs to suggest that lessees 
 ' keep up the fences to a proper standard, as they used to be 
 some years ago, and have the hurdles in the straight run planted 
 
FOR PEACE AND AVAR. 69 
 
 firmly in the ground, so as not to fly in every direction when 
 struck.' The committee would further recommend the abolition 
 of ' trappy and unfair fences ; ' precisely as, at Aylesbury, Lord 
 Queensberry and Lord Charles Ker spoke against ' the trimmed 
 fences ' which the local committee had been fashioning. Of 
 course a very material question at once arises here. Has the 
 Grand National Hunt Committee really any powers ; or, more 
 Ijertinently still, have the stewards of meetings anything to do 
 with the management of the meetings to which they give their 
 countenance ? It will be observed that the Grand National 
 Hunt Committee only ' expresses an opinion ' or ' offers a 
 suggestion' to the lessees of the Liverpool Grand National 
 Steeplechase ; whilst some of the best qualified of the stewards 
 at Aylesbury also only ' suggest ' to the local committee. Now 
 it is very apparent that, beyond any great men of the country 
 side, or the little men more handy to the town, the stewards are 
 selected mainly for their experience and authority as sportsmen ; 
 whereas lessees, clerks of courses, secretaries, and so forth, are 
 or were engaged to carry out the business of the occasion under 
 the direction of their superiors. When Lord George Beutinck 
 put in force his reforms, he did so, caring no more for clerks or 
 secretaries than he did for his own jockey boys. Since then, no 
 doubt, the position has somewhat changed, as many of the 
 officials are now — and we say so much with no intentional dis- 
 respect — merely men of business and nothing more. Their 
 undisguised aim is to get together large fields and large com- 
 panies ; and so long as they can achieve success in this way, 
 they care little for the character of the meeting as an exposition 
 of national sport. 
 
 " After strolling down through the well-known old town, 
 there was something harsh and grating in being pulled up short 
 for the 'one shilling' head money, as if one were about to 
 witness a cockney scramble rather than a workmanlike set-to 
 over the glorious Vale of our earlier days. We have galloped 
 2)ari passu with, the horses as the chase was run, or taken up our 
 point of sight on the hill-side, without being bothered for a 
 
70 England's horses, 
 
 shilling, or pestered to back something, or to say if the favourite 
 is ' spinning this journey.' Manifestly, the means for securing 
 large fields and large companies, heavy betting or rows of list 
 men, are the same. Handicaps and light weights have been 
 detrimental ahke to the chase and the turf; and we may date 
 this decline over a country to the time when the Liverpool 
 Grand National was transformed from an honest, fair hunting 
 country, at fair hunting weights of 12st. each, into a handicap, 
 since which time no horse carrying 12st. has ever won the 
 Grand National. On the contrary, there have often, year by 
 year, been animals, neither racehorses nor hunters, winning the 
 great cross-country event of the season at 9st. 121b., 9st. 81b., 
 9st, 61b., 9st. 101b., 9st. 71b., 9st. 101b., and 9st. 121b. Green, 
 who died only the other day, won the Grand National twice, 
 once at 9st. 121b. and again at 9st. 71b. ; and lads from the 
 racing stables, on cast-off platers, have had quite their turn 
 over Liverpool. Now it necessarily follows that light weights 
 must make light fences. A weed with a racing weight on his 
 back could never force his way through an unshorn bullfinch, 
 and so the fences have to be ' trimmed,' and the hurdles to give 
 and ' fly in every direction ' like the sham jumps at Islington, 
 so that the pumped-out daisy-cutters may be able to gallop 
 tbrough them. Elding a steeplechase over a fair hunting 
 country should be very miicli like riding to hounds ; and 
 ' Nimrod ' long since said in one of his letters that which we 
 may say again here : ' There is a description of persons who 
 are generally defeated when business is to be done, and those 
 are your very light weights. In my experience of foxhunting I 
 have observed that men above eleven stone for the most part 
 beat men under eleven stone, and for this reason : the very light 
 man says, '"Anything will carry me,'" and if he hears of a 
 slight bit of blood which no man of any size will buy because 
 he can't carry weight, he goes and purchases him. The conse- 
 quence of this is, as force must be opposed to force, the little 
 horse and his rider are knocked backwards and thrown over by 
 fences which a heavier man on a heavier horse would break 
 
FOR PEACE AND WAR. 71 
 
 through if he could not clear.' Precisely so ; and as the light 
 weight would not accept if there were fences which would knock 
 him backwards, we provide hurdles which will give, and trappy 
 and trim fences over which men are killed, while the giants of 
 old ' lived ' over far bigger countries. These small fences, say 
 the committee, ' are the cause of nearly all the accidents ; and 
 by having good fair upstanding hunting fences the pace would 
 be much reduced, thereby rendering falls far less frequent and 
 severe.' But the committee must do something more than 
 suggest ; and, as they have already enacted that the minimum 
 weight in a steeplechase handicap shall be lOst., they must go 
 on and raise the strength of the line in proportion, so as to 
 bring us back to fair hunting weights over a fair hunting 
 country. Still, on the face of it, there is something absurd in a 
 steeplechase handicap — at least, as at present arrived at by 
 performances. A faint-hearted weed may be got over Liverpool, 
 but be useless over a stronger country ; and we may point this 
 by the Aylesbury National, where, in the open handicap. Day- 
 break received nearly a stone from Judge and nearly two stone 
 from Kyshworth, and he beat them by miles — one being a great 
 favourite for Liverpool at the time. But Daybreak looked more 
 like carrying a man, and was, moreover, a fine fencer ; while 
 the line was a fair hunting country, which he went over without 
 a lead and without a mistake, with the other two floundering at 
 almost every fence they came to." 
 
 Well done, independent Field ! the "Gentleman's" paper. 
 This is " scotching the viper " and no mistake. It has been 
 long apparent to others, as well as to the late Earl of Derb}^ 
 that the speculative order of race and steeplechase meetnigs 
 was the very worst creation, for the sustainment in its 
 integrity of the orthodox mission of the Turf, that ever had 
 existence. The self-evident object of the promoters of such 
 meetings is individual aggrandisement : and although the 
 regime of such men as Mr. Warner, and the Messrs. Verral, 
 leave nothing to be cavilled at so far as their own integrity 
 
72 England's horses, 
 
 and ability is concerned, it is, unhappily, axiomatically true 
 that the system and its contingencies for which they cater 
 have too much of the miserable plating business about them 
 to afford encouragement to the sustenance of that class of 
 animal the Turf was inaugurated to foster and maintain ; 
 but, upon the contrary, opens up a channel for emolument to 
 the owners of miserable quadrupeds, fit for nothing else 
 but scrambling in such an arena. 
 
 No author having the subject before us at heart, ought to 
 glance at the probable effect of steeplechasing proper upon 
 the production of desirable horses, without, at least, paying 
 his humble meed of praise to Kildare Hunt Steeple 
 Chase Meeting — better known as Punchestown — so 
 largely indebted to that thorough practical expert, the pre- 
 sent Earl of Howth, more familiar in conjunction with this 
 great institution as Viscount St. Lawrence. Here may 
 be seen a line of big, fair hunting country unequalled in 
 the world, and a munificence in prizes and completeness of 
 arrangement beyond all praise. And, just look at the con- 
 sequence — except that you may, rarely, see a "weedy blood" 
 in the "Light Weight Military," the general competitors 
 are remarkable for those qualities which can alone insure 
 victory in such an ordeal, viz., blood, size, bone, and stout- 
 ness. Here is an example worthy to be followed. Here 
 we have the happy results of salutary effects from judicious 
 cause. 
 
 I have before said that at the present day we have exam- 
 ples of the highest quality and excellence in some of the 
 stallions who, at heavy prices for their favours, are reserved 
 for the Belgravian mothers of our 'pur sang horses. But 
 their very excellence negatives to the country the immediate 
 benefit to be derived from their service at the stud. And 
 the desire to breed mainly for speed now-a-days causes to 
 be kept for the purpose of brood-mares many mis-shapen 
 
FOR PEACE AND WAR. tS 
 
 " flyers," that, although they may transmit their pace to 
 posterity, are not calculated to impart any of those essential 
 points and desirable characteristics that we want as the 
 foundation for our military and general horses. 
 
 Can we wonder, then, that a well-known sporting writer, 
 when descanting on the handicap entries the other day, 
 should naively write regarding the paucity of competitors 
 for the longer courses, that, " long races are not so popular 
 as they used to be, oiving to the difficulty of getting horses 
 to stay the distance." Alas ! verily, the means cannot justify, 
 though they have accomplished the end. It is surely a bad 
 day for the encouragement to breed sound and stout, and 
 for those that look beneath the surface and into the future, 
 when they contemplate the unpromising position that 
 £1,000 is added to a short cut handicap in the month of 
 March, and that young blood ones are tried before Christ- 
 mas. In other words, when, possibly, only ten months 
 old, or less ; and certainly not more than eleven months 
 and some days old. 
 
 Another phase in this consideration is the multitude of 
 minor race meetings that have sprung up all over the 
 country, affording an inferior class of race-horse, known, 
 technically, as " platers," sustenance and encouragement. 
 It is well-known what a staunch patron of the turf in its 
 integrity the late Earl Derby was, and how eminently 
 capable of enunciating utilitarian maxims, and propounding 
 sound and fjxr-sighted views concerning any subject he 
 devoted the exercise of his truly great and highly culti- 
 vated intelligence to. In the last letter that has been 
 published, and which his Lordship gave the Avovld, on the 
 subject of racing, he says, in forcible and monitory language, 
 " I know that some persons consider the multiplication of 
 races and starters as a sign of the turfs success. I look on 
 them as the very opposite, and I should hail with satis- 
 
74 England's horses, 
 
 faction the disappearance from the Calendar of one half of 
 the present meetings. I take it that the deterioration of 
 the turf in public estimation, of which there is no doubt, 
 is mainly owing to the fact that the majority of horses 
 are now in the possession of men who run for profit and 
 not for sport, who care nothing for the animal, who cannot 
 afford to wait for a return of their money, and in whose 
 hands a Avretched animal, especially if not quite so wretched 
 as he is thought " (handicap morality !), " is as valuable as 
 one of high class " (a premium on deterioration !), " if not 
 more so. Now, this vicious system is mainly fostered, first, 
 by premature running of tiuo-year-olds " (the italics are 
 not his Lordship's) ; secondly, by the multiplication of short 
 races, which enables horses to be brought out oftener, and 
 thus to afford more frequent opportunities of gambling ; 
 thirdly, by the great preponderance of handicaps." 
 
 These are wise words of a great statesman and thorough 
 sportsman, who was a true votary of racing ; and who, in 
 this his last public essay upon the sport and institution he 
 loved, leaves these a fortiori views to his survivors for con- 
 templation, as sound in policy as they are true in inference, 
 and unanswerable in argument. 
 
 Figures are dry but powerful illustrations. In 1873 the 
 number of horses entered for the five spring handicaps 
 above named were 400 ; in 1874 the aggregate amounts to 
 
 75 less. The average number of racehorses in training, 
 between 1860 and 1870, was 2,400 ; but at present (1874) 
 the revised returns give a total of 1,665. If 200 for Scot- 
 land and Ireland bo added, which is, probably, an estimate 
 in excess of the actual number, it remains that there were 
 nearly 600 more horses in training six years past than there 
 are now. And this at a time when England's wealth was 
 never so great, nor her people more disposed to and capable 
 of indulging in their favourite enjoyment. 
 
FOR PEACE AND WAR. 75 
 
 I think it may be said without offence to anyone, or 
 disparaging of anything, that the sooner the standard of our 
 racing studs are numerically and physically improved the 
 better! And the more rapidly will the objectionable, re- 
 garding the horses, vanish. But how is this to be practically 
 aided towards consummation ? 
 
 We find, from history, tradition, and living evidence, 
 in the establishment of Royal Plates in the past, when 
 the turfites, through their institution, were offered a sti- 
 mulus not afforded by opportunities and rewards of our 
 own gambling era, that there was a vastly more general 
 supply of sound animals with stamina. The money for 
 these Royal Plates, with a view to encourage the propa- 
 gation of blood horses of a superior type, when race- 
 horses were not numerous, and the prizes awaiting their 
 successful efforts moderate, was all fair, legitimate, and 
 desirable ; but the sums now expended for Queen's plates 
 could be, almost anyhow, better applied for advancement 
 of the object they were instituted to promote and maintain. 
 And this, too, without interfering to any appreciable extent 
 with racing and its votaries. The Turf has, within its own 
 system, ample j)rizes noiu to induce to the production of as 
 high class horses as the materials for their propagation will 
 allow, irrespective of any consideration the Royal Donations 
 might evoke, as these gifts have of late years comj)letely failed 
 in inducing the competition and contests which they were 
 inaugurated to engender, and in former times produced^ 
 Surel}' the Master of the Horse should be called upon to 
 give some consideration to this subject, of a more general 
 character than condensing three of the Royal Plates in one 
 at Newmarket, as recently announced in sporting organs ; 
 and having a regard to the time-honoured adage of " new 
 brooms," the present is an opportune period. 
 
 The turf men, in simple justice, have no right or reason 
 
76 England's horses, 
 
 to expect the continuance of a national grant, such as royal 
 plates, where the system they adopt and have created to 
 further private ends conduces to the consummation of 
 results at variance with, and non-conformal to the objects 
 that originally instituted such donations to the turf; for it 
 is generally conceded, even by those who rush into unten- 
 able and intemperate assumptions and generalities in sup- 
 port of an effete and degenerating regime, that the royal 
 plates ffiil altogether in bringing to the post now such 
 fields and such horses as in the days of their novitiate 
 marked the practical utility of their operation. 
 
 It is maintained that the early racing of immature blood 
 horses has mainly contributed to defeat the object of those 
 time-honoured grants. For the inducements to find out 
 the racing merits of thorough-bred foals is under the pre- 
 sent order of things too cogent and ample to hope for the 
 sustenance of grand youngsters, until more advanced age 
 and indurated muscles might have a greater chance of 
 withstanding the terrible rigours of the training stable. 
 
 It is argued with pecuniary force that the sum of £2 10s. 
 a week for each race-horse's training is a considerable item, 
 and that, if breeders and owners of youngsters don't apply 
 themselves to secure some of the prizes awarded to success- 
 ful juvenile competitors they can only hope for immense 
 monetary outlay and great loss. Well, doubtless, this is so. 
 But what does it suggest ? Simply, that, although the 
 turf left to its own operations, unimpeded by Governmental 
 interference, may, under its present code of operations, 
 entirely fail to supply the country generally with the sound 
 and stout horses of former days, its internal interests are 
 of sufficient magnitude to induce its votaries to produce 
 occasionally the finest specimens of the English blood horse. 
 So long as fine thorough-bred stallions can be found, and 
 these it is clear the English turf will continue to produce 
 
FOR PEACE AND WAR. 77 
 
 — the influence of the stallion being calculated in the 
 breeding of general horses as one hundred times greater 
 than the mare, for he may get one hundred foals, while a 
 mare, as a rule, only produces one — I think we may say 
 that the only thing we require in addition is to take care 
 that the meres for our war and general horses are left in 
 sufficient character and quantity in these kingdoms. 
 
 I intend here to call the reader's attention to notices 
 from The Times, which I annex, and which speak trumpet- 
 tongued as to the sad state of things into which we have 
 drifted regarding the equine strength of the country, and 
 from which it is so necessary and absolutely imperative 
 that we should be released. 
 
 The first thing to discover in its naked deformity to the 
 eye of the public and the legislature is this great festering 
 sore in the heart of the nation ; and having clearly exhi- 
 bited this objectionable and melancholy fact to exist 
 beyond hope of controversion or doubt, proceed to look for 
 the remedy, cure, and eventual abolition of the corroding 
 and debilitating evil, 
 
 " Lord Rosebery's Commission," under royal warrant, 
 has elicited facts that, being officially vouched, give all the 
 cegis of high authority to the pen that reproduces in sup- 
 port of its labours salient points, elicited from the efforts of 
 the committee. At least, this is my individual opinion. 
 And be this my apology for the following lengthy extracts. 
 The first is from The Times, 15th August, 1873. 
 
 THE SUPPLY OF HOESES. 
 We have before us, in a Blue-book of 350 pages, the result of 
 the Committee appointed on Lord Kosebery's motion to inquire 
 into the alleged deterioration of the breed of horses in Great 
 Britain. Thirty-nine witnesses were examined during a period 
 extending from the 10th of March to the 16th of June, and the 
 result may be best summed up in the concludiug paragraph of 
 
78 ENGLAND'S HORSES, 
 
 the Eeport, in which the Committee trust that by " the collec- 
 tion of evidence and by the attention they have called to the 
 subject, they have contributed somewhat to the objects for 
 which they were appointed." 
 
 It was hardly, indeed, from the first supposed that any actual 
 or immediate good would result from this inquiry. " In this 
 country," says the Eeport, ".Government interference in such 
 matters is justly unpopular even when practicable." The 
 formation of Government military studs has been tried and 
 abandoned in France. The system for some time past em- 
 ployed in India has been subject to many and grave objections, 
 and we cannot certainly refrain at least from doubts as to a 
 management which could reject as unsound, worthless, or worn- 
 out, horses approved by General Peel, and passed by the 
 Veterinary College.* The remedies which, in the opinion of the 
 Committee, are most practicable for this alleged scarcity of 
 horses — a scarcity which, though undoubtedly somewhat exag- 
 gerated,t does as undoubtedly exist among certain classes, 
 especially among draught J horses and roadsters — are " that the 
 Government should give or add to prizes at Agricultural Shows 
 for Stallions passed sound, which have covered a number of 
 mares at a certain low price in particular districts ;" that "any 
 tax operating as a discouragement on a farmer's keeping horses, 
 whether broken or not, should be either at once abolished or 
 considerably modified, while the dealer's license, which, not 
 existing in Ireland, only produces £19,175 here, should be al- 
 together repealed ; " and lastly, that the system of warranty 
 should be done away with." 
 
 Though they have declined to enter into the vexed question 
 of Army remounts, which they considered, and wisely, as one 
 solely for the military authorities, it must be confessed that 
 some of the evidence given on this important point was startling. 
 
 From Mr. Phillips, of Willesden, the Army contractor, we 
 learn that since the Crimean war only one of our Cavalry 
 
 * Quite possible for horses to be sound and good performers, and worse than 
 worthless as sires for remounts. 
 
 I It is not ! ! ! J Harness, not " draught " horses. 
 
FOR PEACE AND WAR. 79 
 
 regiments, the 9tb Lancers, has been mounted from England, 
 whereas before that time five or six were so supplied. The 
 horses for the Artillery are, indeed, of English breed, but the 
 Cavalry, with the exception named, are mounted from Ireland. 
 The causes of this are, in Mr. Phillips' opinion, and in that of 
 his partner, Mr. East, the change in the regulation age from 
 three to four years old. "The mischief," says Mr. East, "is 
 this :— 
 
 " We left off buying three-year-olds for the Army after the Crimean War. 
 We bought three-year-olds for 25 guineas before the Crimean War, then we 
 certainly had not many ; their numbers were few, but the quality of them was 
 very good indeed. The Crimean War came, and it was no use attempting to 
 buy young ones; we had to buy older horses about London, and wherever we 
 could, for £40 a piece ; and wlien the war was over they would not go back to 
 the three-year-olds, but would insist upon having four-year-olds, and they 
 gave £30 for them. If I am obliged to pay £15 for keeping my colt for a year, 
 I think it was a hard case for the Government to ask of a farmer to sell them 
 a four-year-old horse for about £S 10s. more than they gave before ; because 
 they gave 25 guineas for a three-year-old, and then they asked to have a four- 
 year-old at £.20 ; and when you wanted him kept till he was four years old, 
 you were placed somewhere in the same position as I should be with my colt. 
 You could not have the four-year-old when he was a four-year-old, the foreigner 
 would buy him ; the foreigner steps into the market, and then the farmers 
 can get £40 for him ; but if you had bought the horse at three years old, he 
 would not have got into the foreigner's hands." 
 
 This statement Mr. Phillips, who " mounts the whole of the 
 Artillery in England," corroborates, and further gives us the 
 .following piece of by no means satisfactory information : — 
 
 " 2G3. Supposing that there was any sudden call for horses within two or 
 ihree months, how soon could you get 2,000 or 3,000 together? — I should be 
 put to my wits' end to do it. 
 
 " 264. Will it or will it not be an affair of price ? — No, it is not a question 
 of money ; it is a question of not having the animals. 
 
 " 265. You actually think that there are not the animals on sale in England 
 to provide 2,000 or 3,000 horses for the Artillery at a sudden emergency? — 
 Certainly not, in England. I firmly believe that at the present time every 
 farmer in England who farms over 200 acres of land is short-handed with his 
 horses." 
 
 Nor is Sir Henry Storks much more confident on the 
 
 subject : — 
 
 " 1,599. Is it your experience that you could not find 2,000 horses in Great 
 Britain ? — I think I could find them if I went with any quantity of money in 
 my pocket, but I could not find them at the regulation price, nor could I find 
 them in a very short period. 
 
 "1,600. Should j-ou find any difiiculty in procuring the proper niimber of 
 Cavalry horses to put our Army on a war footing ? — I should think that they 
 could not be procured easily, but there are officers here who will give a better 
 opinion upon that subject than I can do." 
 
 One of those officers, Major-General Eobort Wardlaw, is of 
 opinion that perhaps the number could be found at first, " but 
 
80 England's horses, 
 
 whetlier the supply could be kept up is auotlier questiou, be- 
 cause we should require to keep iucreasing the number." This, 
 too, is the opinion of Colonel Price, of the Horse Artillery, and 
 of Colonel Valentine Baker, late of the 10th Hussars. Colonel 
 Jenyns is even more explicit. 
 
 "2,017. Have you ever considered at all the question of how we should 
 provide horses in case of a sudden military emergency ? — I think that at the 
 present time it would be quite impossible to supply the horses, even if you 
 were to pay £100 or £150 a-piece for them. 
 
 " 2,018. How many horses would be required to make the Cavalry up to its 
 war footing ? — 2,464. 
 
 " 2,019. And how many for the Artillery? — 5,000, within a horse or two. 
 
 "2,020. "With regard to the 5,000 for the Artillery, we have heard already 
 that we should find it almost impossible to get them ? — Yes ; I think you 
 would find it almost impossible to get thein. 
 
 "2,021. Is that exclusive of the Train ?— Entirely exclusive of the Train. I 
 only allude to the combatant branches. 
 
 " 2,022. As regards tlie 2,500, speaking roughly, that you want for the 
 Cavalry, even if you got them within a certain time, they would not be fit 
 for the ranks ? —Certainly not. 
 
 "2,023. How long does it take to make a horse fit for the ranks ? — I consider 
 that a three-year-old horse is not fit for the ranks for a year-and-a-half, owing 
 to his age ; it takes that time to get him fit for work and to break him in. 
 
 "2,024. And also to his being very much out of condition when bought? — 
 He is certain to be out of condition at three years old. 
 
 "2,025. How soon do you think you could buy 2,500 horses if you wanted 
 them? I do not think that on an emergency you would get them now under 
 five or six mouths. 
 
 "2,026. Do you think that you would have to pay £100 a piece for them? — 
 Certainly. 
 
 "2,027. That would be an expense on that item alone of £250,000? — 
 Certainly. 
 
 "2,028. When you got them they would be horses, and not chargers or 
 trooper horses ? — A great many could be made to go in the ranks for fighting 
 purposes, perhaps, in a month ; but they woiild not be broken chargers, or 
 really effective troop horses. I am now alhiding to five-year-old horses, horses 
 tit to go on a campaign to-morrow, as far as condition is concerned." 
 
 All, therefore, who may with reason be considered as most 
 competent to speak on the subject, are of opinion that there 
 would be a serious diflQculty in obtaining in the necessary time 
 the number of horses required to place our Cavalry and Artillery 
 on their proper war footing. What, then, we naturally ask, are 
 the remedies they would suggest ? Mr. Phillips at once answers 
 with a suggestion which has struck him, and will perhaps strike 
 others too, as a " practical thing : " — 
 
 " 348. Do you think that it would answer to have a large establishment of 
 trooper horses, where three years old, or even younger, might be brought and 
 kept until they were four years old ?— Yes ; but it would cost the Government 
 above iElOO a-piece. 
 
 " 349; Would you not buy them cheaper at three years old than at four years 
 ol^y—Yes, I believe that that is the only solution of 'the difficulty. I think 
 that the Government must keep them, for you find that the farmers will not 
 keep thorn. Things are too dear for them to keep them longer, and you wiU 
 
FOR PEACE AND WAR. 81 
 
 miss a great many good horses unless you buy them at three years old. A 
 farmer will sell a horse at three years old because it may have a white face, or 
 something for which he does not think it good enough to keep it on longer, 
 and he will take the Government price at that time, but if he does not sell it 
 then, he keeps it on longer, and he gets a better customer for it than the 
 Government at foiu- years old. 
 
 " 350. Would it not be better for the Government to buy them from the 
 farmers at three years old, and keep them for a year? — I think so. 
 
 " 351. Do you think that it woixld be worth while for the Government to huj 
 them at three years old, and keep them either in some general depot or some 
 depot for each regiment, until they are four years old ? — I think that if you 
 were to increase all your batteries, for instance, 20 per cent., and take three- 
 year-old horses into them, they woiild mature better. With a battery having 
 20 extra horses, you have got all the materials there, and you would always 
 come out with your strength and leave 20 horses behind ; and every autumn, 
 supposing you want those autumn manoeuvres, let every battery colonel send 
 you 20 of his worst horses, and let them go through the autumn manoeuvres, 
 and sell them for whatever they will fetch. I think you would not want to 
 create dep6ts or any extensive establishments, and you would also allow us to 
 begin buying horses on the 1st of April, which we ought to do. That is an 
 idea of my own, and perhaps it is presumptuous of me to say so, biit it strikes 
 me as a practical thing." 
 
 On the same side follow Lord Vivian, Major Wardlaw, Colonel 
 Price, and Colonel Baker. Colonel Jenyns, while not altogether 
 opposed to the sj'stem of purchasing three-year-olds as a re- 
 serve fund, thinks the establishment of Government depots 
 would interfere with the privilege that commanding officers 
 have of purchasing their own horses. To this privilege, on the 
 other hand, Lord Charlemont takes strong objection. Admit- 
 ting the possibility of Lord Strathnairn's dissent, his Lordship 
 objects altogether to the purchase of horses for the regiments 
 by the Colonels of the regiments. He says : — 
 
 "I would have all the horses for army remounts purchased by the Govern- 
 ment. I would have all horses for the army service purchased and stationed 
 at proper depots, to be there conditioned, trained, and broken, and never sent 
 
 to the regiments till they were fit to go to the ranks. 
 
 "622. You object to the system of buying by particiilar regiments ?—Tes, I 
 do. I know that in fairs the colonels of ditlerent regiments continually clash 
 against each other in their purchases. 
 
 " (523. Do you mean that it raises the price ? — No, I do not mean in raising 
 the price so much as in interfering with each other's taste or discrimination 
 in the purchase. I think that a great deal of diificulty arises often from the 
 commanding officers of different regiments being in the same fair, and clash- 
 ing against each otlier. 
 
 " 624. Do yoix mean that their individual tastes clash ?— It is not that 
 merely ; they want black horses for one regiment, we vnll say the Life Guards, 
 and the Life Guards want three or four greys for the band. The colonel of 
 the Greys is there, and he is very angry at the greys being taken away from 
 him for the band of the Life Guards." 
 
 But Sir Henry Storks does not consider that the pxtrchase of 
 three-year-olds, with a view to keeping them and breaking them 
 to use at four years, is at all an economical arrangement, as 
 
82 England's horses, 
 
 "in point of fact the Government would have to pay for the 
 keep of the animal, instead of the breeder, for the additional 
 year." He enforces his point with the following statistics : — 
 
 " 1,624. Could you give the Committee any information as to the expense of 
 a three-year-old, bought at three and kept till four, of course being used 
 merely for the purpose of breaking up to four years of age ? — Yes, I think I 
 could state that. There was a proposal of adding 20 per cent, of three-year- 
 old horses to regiments, and I could state to the Committee exactly what it 
 would cost as regards feeding them, and other incidental expenses. Taking 
 the Cavalry and the Royal Artillery in Great Britain, I have excluded the 
 train of the Royal Engineers, and also the Army Service Corps, but merely 
 taking the Household Brigade, the Cavalry of the Line, and the Artillery, I 
 make it that there are 9,670 horses, and in Ireland, in the Cavalry of the Line, 
 and the Royal Artillery, the number is 3,543 horses. If we add 20 per cent, 
 on the Great Britain establishment, it would make 1,934 horses, and on the 
 Irish establishment it would make 708. giving a total of 2,642 horses. I 
 separate Great Britain from Ireland because the forage is a different price. I 
 make out that the forage of the 1,934 horses in Great Britain would cost 
 £50,001 19s. 2d. a year; and of the 708 in Ireland would cost £'1.5.795 I8s. 5d., 
 which makes a total of ^65,797 17s. 7d. ; and the farriery allowance for 2,645 
 horses would be £2,009 Os. 5d., making a total of i'67,806 18s. That does not 
 include, of course, the cost of the horse, nor the casualties, nor the inci-eased 
 stable accommodation, nor anything like stable implements, such as buckets 
 and things of that sort. Supposing we put the cost price of a three-year-old 
 at ±'35, his value when four years old would be £60 13s. 4d., and his value 
 when five years old would be £86 6s. 8d. 
 
 " There is another question too," he adds, " would have to be 
 considered : — 
 
 " Supposing that we had 20 per cent, added to the Cavalry regiments, I 
 have excluded from that calculation anything about an increased establish- 
 ment as regards those additional liorses. 
 
 " Which you apprehend would be to a certain extent required ? — Yes. The 
 Household Cavalry have 34:i men and 275 horses ; 20 per cent, would be 55 
 horses more, so that there would be 330 horses to 343 men. I apprehend that 
 you would scarcely think that would do. Nine regiments of the line have 
 547 men and 384 horses; adding 20 per cent, would make 778, giving a total of 
 461 horses to 547 men. Then there are ten regiments of the line that have 
 447 men and 320 horses ; adding 64 for the 20 per cent, would give 384 horses 
 to 447 men. In the Royal Artillery the proportions are also pretty much the 
 same ; but I can put that Return in also." 
 
 General Peel, in his turn, has a proposal to make, the very 
 opposite of those to which we have hitherto been listening : — 
 
 " With regard to the Cavalry, I am afraid I should very much astonish His 
 Royal Highness if I were to say that I should strongly recommend, instead of 
 purchasing horses at four years old, purchasing them at a much earlier age. 
 I think there is a great deal of truth in the old saying that most of the good- 
 ness of a horse goes in at his mouth — that is to say, it depends very much 
 upon whether he has been starved or well fed during his youth how he turns 
 out afterwards. However that may be, I am perfectly certain that whatever 
 goodness he has in him will be sooner developed and brought to maturity if 
 he is well fed than if he is starved in the first year or two. If you were to go 
 to Newmarket next December you would be perfectly astonished to see the 
 yearlings that have been recently purchased galloping away there, with heavy 
 weights on their backs, at a good speed; you would hardly know the distinc- 
 tion between them and old horses. Now, I should like to see an experiment 
 of this kind tried ; every Colonel of a cavalry regiment should be allowed to 
 purchase a few two-year-olds in October; he would have a far greater number 
 
FOR PEACE AND WAR. 83 
 
 to select from, and pay a smaller price for them than at present. In the 
 October following, if they were well fed in the meantime, you would find that 
 would be able to put them into the ranks sooner than a four year-old 
 , at that time."* 
 
 The question of remounting cavalry will, in his opinion, 
 always be one of price. Amid such a mass of conflicting 
 evidence and opinions, who can say that the committee did not 
 do wisely in refraining from the proposal of any " special or 
 detailed scheme for providing army remounts ?" 
 
 It is, however, satisfactory to know that while no one is 
 willing to dispute the falling off in the quantity of the material 
 at our disposal, that the quality remains the same is equally 
 indisputable.t All the military authorities we have quoted are 
 agreed on this point. It is merely a question of price, they say. 
 The horses are as good as ever, but they are dearer, and there 
 are not so many of them. The same remark, according to Mr. 
 Greene, M.P., a M. F. H., applies equally to hunters. Horses 
 Avhich two years ago he could mount the servants of his hunt 
 upon at an average of £40 apiece, are now hardly to be found 
 at all, and never under £60 or £80. It is the same witli 
 roadsters — a class much patronized, according to Mr. Phillips, 
 by foreigners — and with carriage horses ; the latter, indeed, says 
 Mr. East, are hardly to be got for any money : — 
 
 "If you told me that you woTild give me £400 for a pair of carriage horses that 
 you dare put your wife behind- a pair of nice, good horses, worth ±"200 — and 
 gave me a fortnight to get them in, I would not guarantee to buy them. I do 
 not think there is a man in London that could do it, or that I could go to a 
 dealer's yard and get a pair of carriage horses, such as you would like to put 
 your wife behind, for ±'400. At this moment we have now got 300 lying by and 
 not earning a shilling, and we would not do that if we could supply London 
 by going into the market and getting what we want directly ; it is only that 
 we may have them by us when we want them in May and June." 
 
 Even the number of racehorses chargeable to duty is, accord- 
 ing to the returns published up to the 31st of December, 1872, 
 less tban it has been in any previous year up to 1866. It was 
 then returned as 2,309, against 2,310 for last year, which shows 
 
 * The concentration of practical wisdom and common sense in General 
 Peel's remarks here ought to be written in letters of gold, and they derive 
 great additional weight from the consideration of the immense stimulus the 
 prospect of an assured and early market would give to general horse-breeding. 
 
 t It is not so ; according to the author's individual experience there are 
 more " weeds " and more unsoundness than thirty years ago. 
 
84 England's hoesks, 
 
 a decrease of 1G3 against the 2,473 of 1871. Mr. Edmund 
 Tattersall, a name which is a household word among all lovers, 
 of horses, also speaks as to the general scarcity, and brings 
 three good names to corroborate what he says : — 
 
 " Judging from all the information that I have received from gentlemen 
 whose opinions I get, there is a great scarcity of a good class of horses bred. 
 I could mention different districts in which I have information from gentle- 
 men who live there — for example, Mr. Thomas Drake. Mr. Challoner Smitli, 
 and Mr. Villebois, whom I saw this morning. They all agree upon this point 
 —that where there were fifty good horses bred in their districts twenty years 
 since, you cannot find five of the same sort of horse bred now. Mr. Challoner 
 Smitla speaks of a district round Abingdon, where he has lived all his life."* 
 
 One only stands out in opposition to this formidable array of 
 alarmists, with the statement that in his judgment 
 
 " There are more horses in the countiy at this moment than ever there 
 were, and they never were so good, and their stature has increased. The 
 stature of thorough-bred stock has increased since the year 1700 an inch every 
 twenty-five years ; and whereas the average size of horses then was 13 hands 
 3, the average is now 15 hands 2 ; and in point of carrying power, they can 
 carry twice as much weight as they could a hundred years ago." 
 
 Admiral Eous has, as of course all England knows, devoted a 
 considerable portion of his life — thirty years according to his 
 own statement — to the study of racing and racehorses and of 
 horses generally, but he cannot say that he thinks there are as 
 many horses bred in this country as formerly. " With the 
 price of beef and mutton it will not pay to breed horses," he 
 says, " but you can get as many as you want from the Con- 
 tinent." In the event of a war, however, the Admiral would 
 not rely upon foreign horses. "In the event of a war," he 
 says : — f 
 
 " You woiild lay your hand upon 500,000 in this country, and you would 
 look at all of them and take what you please ; if the country is ever threat- 
 ened, there are '2,000,000 horses in the country, and it would be very hard if 
 you could not get 500,000 to serve you." 
 
 On the 16th August, 1873, The Times continues : — 
 THE SUPPLY OF HOESES. 
 
 We have seen in our former notice of the Report of this 
 Commission how j)revalent was the opinion of the witnesses 
 
 * Does not this corroborate the Author's views? 
 t This is fallacious enthusiasm. 
 
FOR PEACE AND WAR. 85 
 
 examined as to the real existence of a scarcity of horses in this 
 kingdom, and we propose now to glance at the reasons assigned 
 and the remedies suggested for that scarcity. As regards the 
 former, treated by each successive witness at greater or less 
 length, with greater or less degree of detail, they may be com- 
 prised, according to the evidence, under these three heads : The 
 higher prices given to our breeders by the foreign buyers ; 
 the extraordinary demand made upon our market during the 
 Franco-Prussian war ; and the fact that the farmers find it 
 pays them better now to breed sheep and oxen than to breed 
 horses : — * 
 
 " Chairman.— Do you attribute this rise in the prices only to the general 
 rise in the price of other commodities ?— I think that although it has paid the 
 farmer very well to breed horses at the price that he has had, the price that 
 he gets now does not really pay him ; there are very few that breed ; they 
 have found other things pay them much better. 
 
 " Duke of Cambridge. — Why should farmers find it less profitable now than 
 they did before ?— Because the other produce pays them much better ; both 
 beef and mutton pay them much better now than they did before, and the 
 farmers are getting into larger farms, and consequently are more engrossed in 
 other business. Men who kept several horses before rarely keep more than 
 just one or two now. 
 
 " Chairman.— Then, do you think that the number of farmers who breed 
 horses has actually diminished ? — Yea. 
 
 "In spite of the great increase of the demand?— Yes; a farmer cannot 
 breed now; he has not got the materials to breed from; the foreigners have 
 been for years buying all our best mares, consequently what he does breed he 
 breeds from a bad mai-e instead of a good one ; he has sold the best mare, 
 and that has gone to Germany or Russia. They have been gradually taken 
 away for years, and now they have drained the country so much that the 
 farmer cannot breed, because he has not got the mare to breed from." 
 
 These are Mr. East's words, to which he adds his opinion 
 that breeding on a large scale cannot be carried on profitably. 
 We have no mares now to speak of, because ''the foreigners 
 considered our breed the best in the world," and did not care 
 what price they paid for it. They have agents who " know 
 England as well as we do, and they are always looking about 
 and finding out where all the best mares are." Mr. Phillips is 
 surprised to hear that "except during the last French war 
 there have never been above 5,000 horses sent away from this 
 country." It is not the foreign Governments who compete with 
 us, but the foreign dealers. They are not hmited as to price, 
 
 * It would not if General Peel's views were adopted. 
 
86 England's horses, 
 
 and they buy for all purposes, military and trade. Naturally, 
 too, they prefer mares, because these can be sold afterwards for 
 stud purposes. When asked as to his knowledge of the export 
 of horses to Eussia, Mr. Phillips's answer is worthy of note : — 
 
 " The export of horses to Eussia has been nothing in my time ; hut in years 
 to come we shall have all to go to Russia for horses, for I believe it is the only 
 country in Europe that has good horses. I know that some of our dealers 
 have gone over now to Russia to try to buy horses, and the French dealers 
 are going there too." 
 
 That our farmers cannot now be got to breed horses to the 
 extent they used is Mr. Edward Greene's opinion, and on these 
 grounds : — 
 
 " I think that the price of bullocks and sheep has acted very much upon the 
 farmer in preventing his breeding horses ; at live or three years old he makes 
 £18 or ±'20 of a bullock, and he is not asked any questions as to whether it has 
 action, or has a spavin, or whether it is a whistler, and he sells it right out; 
 and that has led him to breed bullocks and sheep instead of horses. 
 
 " What class of men did breed principally in Norfolk and Suffolk ? —The 
 farmers breed ; a man farming a large farm would have two or three mares. 
 Then there is another great difficulty about breeding riding horses, which, per- 
 liaps, I had better turn my attention to first. Supposing a farmer begins breed- 
 ing with three mares, if he is succes.'^f al, before he can turn them into money at 
 anything like a marketable price, he will have from ten to twelve animals. 
 There will be the mares with the foals by their sides and those of the three 
 previous years, one, two, and three year old animals, and they take a great 
 deal of room, xmless he has a quantity of poor land ; and I think that now, 
 with the advance in the price of labour, there is a good deal of poor land that 
 would pay better for colts than it would even for bullocks, because a colt after 
 he is a year old, if well fed the first year, which I think is a sine qua no», is 
 really better not to be too highly fed ; he is less likely to throw out ringbones 
 and spavins and splints, and those kind of things. Therefore, I think that, 
 now that the pi-ice of horses is so much better, that kind of laud will be used 
 more for breeding purposes than it has been of late. Then he gets ten or 
 twelve animals on to his farm, and they are a nuisance to him ; unless he has 
 a lax-ge tract of pasture he does not know what to do with his colts. They 
 gnaw his grass and his trees, and are very troublesome to him, particularly in 
 winter. He must have a yard specially for them ; and, unless they fetch a 
 good price, he will not put up with the inconvenience and the discomfort of 
 having a number of young animals running about his farm." 
 
 It is not one class of horse, says the same witness, more than 
 another which is affected by this scarcity, unless, perhaps, it 
 may be harness horses — that is to say, " a carriage horse, a 
 phaeton horse, or a horse to drive in a dog-cart." With hunters 
 again it is not so noticeable, for — 
 
 " The qualifications for a hunter are not of the same description. With a 
 hunter men put i;p with a good deal. A horse that will jump is called a 
 himter, and people manage to find horses in that way ; but for a harness 
 horse you want a certain amount of power and shape to fill the eye, and they 
 are very difficult to get." 
 
 Mr. Church, Manager and Secretary of the General Omnibus 
 
FOR PEACE AND WAR. 87 
 
 Company, has the same tale to tell. "Is it your impression," 
 he is asked by the Chairman (Lord Eosebery) — 
 
 " That there is any great difficulty at the present time in procuring horses 
 of the class that you want ? — There is no doubt about it. 
 
 "Are the horses which you are working at the present moment English or 
 foreign ? — They are nearly all foreign horses at present. 
 
 '' When did you first begin to procure foreign horses ? — Shortly after the 
 late war on the Continent, within about the last two years." 
 
 These foreign horses are not equal, thinks Mr. Church, to our 
 own breed for fast work. The average amount of work to be 
 got out of the Company's horses is from four years and a half to 
 five years, so that Mr. Church has not yet had sufficient ex- 
 perience to speak of the lasting qualities of these foreigners. 
 They are mostly Percherons, and come from Normandy and 
 Brittany. But even this source is likely to be closed soon, 
 owing to the increase of price the French Government have put 
 on their stock, and then Mr. Church confesses he does not know 
 what he shall do. 
 
 " Do they consider it perfectly hopeless to get the class of horse that you 
 want in England? — They cannot get them; they travel for them, but they 
 cannot get them. 
 
 " You also say that the number of working horses, in your belief, at the 
 present time in London is greatly below that of any previous time during the 
 last twenty years ? — I believe so. I cannot give any figures to prove it, but I 
 know that many cab proprietors and other people, who formerly kept horses, 
 have given it up entirely, because they cannot afford to get them ; in fact, 
 they cannot get them. 
 
 " Do you mean a great many of the large cab proprietors ? — No, not the 
 large cab proprietors, but men who used to keep two or three cabs, perhaps. 
 
 " Your answer does not imply that it is because of the great demand, but 
 because of the great scarcity of horses ; it is not a relative scarcity, but an 
 absolute scarcity ? — Yes it is an absolute scarcity. 
 
 " Do you think that the scarcity is likely to increase ? — I am afraid so. 
 
 " Do you think that the class of horses that you require is extensively bred 
 in England at the present time? — I do not think it is. I am told that farmers 
 say that it does not pay to breed horses. The.v prefer to breed and fatten 
 stock, and they are not breeding horses to any extent. 
 
 " They also sell their stock to foreigners, do they not ? — Yes, the foreign 
 dealers were at the country markets, and they ti'avelled to all the fairs, and 
 did a vast business. There is one man named Douay, a Frenchman, who, I 
 should think, has taken over some hundreds, and probably thousands, of 
 horses. 
 
 " It is becoming a very serious question for your Company, is it not ? — ^Tes, 
 it is a question at the present time of something like £30,000. 
 
 " And, of course, if that increases very largely you will have to raise your 
 fares very greatly, will you not, or give up your business ? I am afraid that 
 raising the fares would destroy the trade on the one hand, and, on the other, 
 it is a vei-y dilScult question with lis to know what we shall do. 
 
 "But it is a vital question, is it not? — It is, no doubt. At present we have 
 the advantage of having very cheap provender, and have had this advantage 
 for the last two years, and I think there is a prospect of our having it for 
 another year. But if provender becomes dear, I could hardly tell what would 
 be the effect upon our company." 
 
88 ENGLAND S HORSES, 
 
 As a set off, however, to this theory of the farmers, Colonel 
 Maude teUs us that he considers in " Cumberland, Westmore- 
 land, and Lancashire there are more horses bred now than were 
 bred twenty years ago." He admits there is a difficulty in 
 buying the big horses, the Cleveland bays, used in the Eoyal 
 carriages, but he attributes this to the fact that, smaller and 
 lighter carriages being used now than was the case formerly, a 
 lighter class of horse is required. But he says — 
 
 " I think there are more horses in the country than there ever were hefore. 
 I think that there is a tremendous demand for horses — an increasing demand. 
 There is an immense goods traffic on all the railways, and light carts and 
 wagons, and so on, are used greatly in excess of what there ever was before. 
 The farmers in some districts are not breeding to the extent that they used to 
 do, but I do not know what you can do beyond giving a little reward in the 
 shape of prizes to the farmers who breed ; that would be a little stimulant, 
 perhaps, to the breeder." 
 
 In that concluding sentence is embodied the almost universal 
 opinion of all the witnesses as to the means whereby horse 
 breeding and rearing may once again be established on the old 
 footing throughout the country — premiums given by all the 
 agricultural shows, local as well as general, not only for sires, 
 but also for their produce. Let all the sires, those that travel 
 through and those that are permanently located in the various 
 districts, be first examined and approved as to their soundness. 
 One witness, Captain Owen Slack, whose experience is chiefly 
 in Ireland, suggests that this should be done by taxation : — ^ 
 
 " In the first place, I think that some action might be taken on the part of 
 the Government to encourage breeding generally, and for that reason I think 
 that an experiment might be tried in certain breeding districts with sires, in 
 such counties as Kildare, or Meath, or Tipperary, or Waterford, or some of 
 them, and these horses could be located in the district, and let out to certain 
 approved mares at the rate that is given now by the farmers for these brutes 
 that they have, say a sovereign. I think that would do good in one way. I 
 think, then, that 1 would put a tax upon all stallions that did not receive a 
 certificate; and if they received a certificate of soundness I would exempt 
 them, but if not I would put the tax upon them. Then, if a man had an un- 
 certified stallion, he would soon drop off getting mares ; and you would pre- 
 vent a great number of those horses being bought, for the way in which they 
 are bought is this — it is generally some stallion that is bought at a county race 
 meeting, perhaps a selling race, or something of that kind, and he is broken 
 dovm, and £25, I should say, is the average price paid for a good number of 
 them." 
 
 * The author's views are entirely concurrent with Captain Slack's ; know- 
 ing that officer's assertions to be an accurate recapitulation of facts, and 
 believing his principles to be sound and practical. 
 
FOR PEACE AND WAR. 89 
 
 Ireland would appear to offer particular difficulties to these 
 reformers, for we learn from Lord Doneraile that the " farmers 
 are excessively prejudiced, and it is almost impossible to make 
 them send to a good horse if there happens to be a popular 
 man with a bad horse in the neighbourhood."* As a ma^tter of 
 fact, it must be confessed that the most emphatic advocates of 
 this system of Government-certificated sires foresee great diffi- 
 culties in the way from that prejudice which has from time 
 immemorial been the peculiar characteristic — we were almost 
 saying the boast — of the British farmer. Still, they none the 
 less resolutely recommend its adoption. Mr. Phillips is very 
 distinct on the subject : — 
 
 " The only plan that I see which is feasible is for some Government aiithor- 
 ity to be at the head to supplement the prizes of the Agricultural Society for 
 the different classes of stallions, and give such a premium as would induce 
 the owners of the horses to compete, and let them cover the coiintry at two 
 guineas a-piece as the usual price, and those horses must travel the district. 
 It is of no use to have stationary stallions ; people will not send to them. I 
 would humbly suggest, that as Agricultural Societies are in existence, they 
 might supplement it by a Government Commission to carry out the details, 
 and there should be drawn up something like the system which Mr. East told 
 the Committee was done at Glasgow. It might be easily devised that people 
 should agree to conditions to compete for thoroughbreds, coach-horses, road- 
 sters, and cart-horses, the same as the societies are doing now ; and where 
 they give £20 for a certain breed of horses, you will give £100 if you like. 
 You would be sure then to get some good horses competing for the prize. 
 The horse should be bound to serve that district which he competes for that 
 season, at a sum not exceeding two guineas, travelling 100 miles a week in 
 going round the same, as those men do who travel their own stallions. I 
 would not allow them to charge more than two guineas. "f 
 
 Lord Spencer, too, holds the same views, speaking, as was 
 natural, only for the Irish side, where he admits there are com- 
 plaints of the scarcity of " large, sound, weight -carrying horses." 
 There would certainly seem to be reason in the complaint, if, as 
 his Lordship tells us, a gentleman, willing to give any price for 
 what he wanted, travelled all over the country last spring, and 
 could only find two or three horses he cared to take. I To devote 
 the money now yearly given for Queen's Plates, amounting to 
 
 * A perfect truism, and a material consideration in support of Government 
 supervision, at least in Ireland ! 
 
 f Mr. Phillips' views are good, no doubt, so far as they go, but his sugges- 
 tion leaves the sire question still in the hands of individuals, not insuring a 
 uniform standard of excellence, but only offering a reward for the best in what 
 may prove (as it generally does at shows) a " rubbishing lot " of competitors. 
 
 I Corroborates the author's views as to degeneracy and scarcity. 
 
90 England's horses, 
 
 a little over £1,500, to the "encouragement of agricultural 
 societies, and the locating of stallions about the country," would, 
 his Lordship thinks, be a decided step in the right direction — 
 and Captain Slack is with him. A number of these plates are 
 won by horses sent specially from England, a fact which at 
 once destroys the very object for which these prizes were insti- 
 tuted — to encourage the breed of horses in Ireland. Lord 
 Spencer considers that these Queen's Plates " cannot be de- 
 fended," and "do not contribute at all to the amusements of 
 the people." 
 
 That the good to be done by agricultural shows, and an in- 
 crease in the prize-money offered, is becoming gradually recog- 
 nized, we learn from Mr. Thomas Parrington, Secretary to the 
 Yorkshire Agricultural Society. This year the Society offers 
 prizes of ^50, £20, and £10 for the best thoroughbred hunting 
 stallions, whereas last year £30 was the highest prize. That 
 there are not as many good horses bred in Yorkshire as formerly 
 Mr. Parrington admits, but he is confident that the quality of 
 what there is is as good as ever, if not better : — * 
 
 " I think the quality is wonderfully good. I was out with the Holderness 
 hounds mj'self not a fortnif,'lit ago, and I counted two hundred well-mounted 
 horsemen in the field, and I did not count them all. I asked the question 
 what was an ordinary field thirty years ago, and they told me from twenty to 
 thirty." 
 
 The present system of warranties and of dealers' licenses is a 
 crying evil in the eyes of all, professional and amateur alike. 
 Everj'^ one has to pay the license now. " What do you mean 
 by every one ? " asks the Marquis of Lansdowne of Mr. 
 Phillips :— 
 
 " If you were to buy a horse in the country and sell it again, either at a 
 profit or at a loss, in a week, you would be liable to the horse-dealer's license. 
 
 "Have people been called upon to pay the horse-dealer's license under 
 those circumstances within your knowledge ? — Yes. There was a case of a 
 pig-jobber who was summoned, and I believe was convicted. He went on to 
 the Wolds to buy some pigs, and he bought a pony ; he brought it home and 
 sold it at ten shillings profit, and he was fined £12, and had to pay the horse- 
 dealer's license." 
 
 Mr. Lumley Hodgson, of Easingwold, in the North Biding, 
 described by one of the witnesses as "one of the highest 
 
 * How superficial is this. The author knows the Holderness country and 
 also knows that there are numbers of horse-deaUng farmers attending, the 
 " meets " on promising horses, bought far and near ! ! ! 
 
FOR PEACE AND WAR. 91 
 
 authorities in Yorkshire," puts in as evidence to the same effect 
 a letter from a friend, who says : — 
 
 "I think you know how I was used last year by the revenue officers about 
 the horse-dealers' license. They write to me week after week insisting I 
 should pay the duty, knowing perfectly well that I was not a horse-dealer. I 
 told them I should do nothing of the kind ; but this Government system is 
 become such a nuisance that we farmers hardly dare sell a horse to each other, 
 expecting to be surcharged for horse-dealing. Now I don't like being hauled 
 up before a Magistrate as if you were a thief ; 1 think I shall give it up alto- 
 gether. My neighbour could have had MHO profit for a horse last week, but 
 only having had him for a month he declined entirely, on account of the 
 horse-dealing license." 
 
 And with regard to the warranty system the same witness 
 is equally outspoken : — 
 
 " If a dealer bought a farmer's horse, and he did not get it sold for a profit, 
 he applied to the farmer, with an excuse that it was lame, or something, and 
 therefore he had to return him ; trusting the farmer would give him i;6 or £10 
 sooner than have his horse back, or have a lawsuit ; it was not so easy to run 
 up and look into the ti-uth formerly as now. 
 
 "But, surely, if a farmer sells a horse to a dealer, and the dealer does not 
 like him, and the dealer sends back some excuse, do you mean that he would 
 not have him examined, or would he send him back anyway ? — I mean that 
 the farmer, sooner than stand the trial and the waste of his money in law, 
 would rather return the dealer so much money than take the horse back. 
 
 " Could not the farmer in the first instance either decline to warrant the 
 horse or insist upon the horse being examined before the dealer bought him ? 
 — -The dealer would not buj^ him unless the farmer did warrant him. 
 
 " Could not the farmer say to the dealer, ' I will not warrant that horse, but 
 you can have him examined by the veterinary sui-geon ? ' — The dealer would 
 not buy him without a written warranty. 
 
 " He would not be satisfied with the veterinary surgeon's examination ? — No. 
 
 " Why would he not ? — Becaiise, when they could get a written warranty, 
 they would not take the veterinarj^ surgeon's opinion. 
 
 " Are you speaking of first-class dealers ? — Yes." 
 
 And here, in one short sentence, are Mr. Hodgson's remedies 
 for the existing state of things, this scarcity which " has been 
 increasing generally ever since he can recollect :" — 
 
 " The farmers to breed, graze, and sell horses like other stock, without be- 
 ing subject to the dealers' license ; buy three-year-old mounts for the cavalry, 
 instead' of four, because it does not pav the farmers to keep them until four 
 years old; do away with the Queen's Plates; and give prizes at agricultural 
 shows for good stallions; or Government to purchase good sound stallions 
 and send them in the breeding districts to serve mares at a low price." 
 
 But after reading through the 350 pages which represent the 
 opinions of these thirty-nine witnesses, among whom were the 
 men best qualified, perhaps, of any throughout the length and 
 breadth of England to speak on the subject, it seems to us that 
 the keynote to the whole question was struck by Mr. Parrington : 
 
 " The simple fact is that the demand exceeds the supply. 
 
02 England's horses, 
 
 " And the demand will produce the supply in time ? — No douht it will 
 eventually. 
 "It stimulates the supplj^? — Yes."* 
 
 That there are grievances attached to the present system of 
 breeding and rearing, buying and selHng, to be removed, and 
 improvements to be effected, is sufficiently obvious from the 
 evidence we have touched on. But the real grievance lies in 
 the sudden and enormous increase of our national wealth and 
 prosperity. For one who hunted or kept his carriage twenty or 
 thirty years ago, it would be easy to find fifty who do so to-day. 
 It needs but a walk down Piccadilly to the Park on any Summer 
 evening during the London season to confirm our statement. 
 This extraordinary demand, too, has arisen on a market already 
 weakened by the late French war,f and tempted by the long 
 prices offered by foreigners at a time when the reaction conse- 
 quent on that mania for high prices which we can all remember 
 had set in. We do not think, however, that the public need be 
 under any very serious apprehension. So long as there are men 
 to buy, we strongly suspect there will not be wanting men to 
 sell ; and to the most fearful we feel we cannot do better than 
 recommend those comfortable words of Mr. Parrington we have 
 already quoted, that the very fact of the demand at present 
 exceeding the supply, will of itself stimulate the supply to rise 
 to the demand. "I 
 
 Without attempting to review, collectively or in detail, 
 the subject matter I have reprinted from the pages of 
 "the leading journal " on the subject of " horse suj^ply," I 
 proceed with my theme after my own fashion. 
 
 The supply of horses is, admittedly, much below the re- 
 quirements of the public and the War Department in this 
 
 * Under the lax system of breeding general horses, what benefit will that 
 bring about, in comparison to what would be effected by the general siipply of 
 Government stallions at a period of scarcity so oxjportune for regenerative 
 eiforts. 
 
 t The French War had no effect upon the fashionable harness horses and 
 hunters in use. 
 
 I In providing that supply, let the country be warned that "like begets 
 like ! " and take care that the best males are interposed at a period so exceed- 
 ingly opportune to the consummation of the happiest results from such a wise 
 and practical course. 
 
FOR PEACE AND WAR. 93 
 
 country. In a great, energetic, and wealthy community, we 
 might expect great things, such as that from which arises 
 the absorbers of general horse stock in these kingdoms; 
 but, where so great a majority of our general horses is 
 supplied by poor farmers in Ireland, we must be careful, if 
 we are wise, to put suitable stallions in their way, for it is 
 sure that demand Avill beget supply, and that a widespread 
 scarcity will induce to higher prices, and consequently 
 greater inducement to breed. And any legislation calcu- 
 lated to ease the holders of horse stock from taxes, would 
 assuredly be a material step in the right direction, as 
 fostering and promoting a desire throughout the farmers 
 and breeders to deal in more extended operations for 
 suppl3dng the national want. There is an imperial neces- 
 sity ; why not facilitate operations towards its removal by 
 imperial countenance and aid ? Let the government legis- 
 late for a national stud of stallions, to be let under licence 
 to the general holders of stallions, with their assured 
 dientiel throughout the breeding districts in Ireland and 
 elsewhere, and by way of a start, buy up all the sires in 
 private hands, keep the useful ones and shoot the others. 
 
 Abolish all warranties from the seller, and let the good 
 old rule of caveat emptor be the guide of the purchaser. 
 The breeder has his sunken capital, the many chances 
 peculiar to his venture against him, before he can produce 
 a marketable animal. It is apparent that I allude here to 
 the breeder of general stock ; for the racehorse breeder 
 comes to market with his yearlings ; whereas the other 
 cannot, in a general way, find a customer before three, and 
 with the army contractors not now before four ! We have 
 seen in the above extracts from The Times, what grievances 
 the horse breeders may be, and are, subjected to by the 
 present system of Horse Warranty — a pernicious, ineffec- 
 tual, and corrupt system ; unfair on the seller, and, too 
 often, unprotective and abortive towards the buyer. 
 
94 England's horses, 
 
 A few words to the public may be introduced here without 
 an unpardonable digression, as being pertinent to the 
 subject under notice, upon the usages of horse dealing. 
 
 That King Solomon dealt in horses, the Great Book tells 
 us, thus establishing horse dealing as of respectable antece- 
 dents and very ancient date. Also, in the 27th chapter of 
 Ezekiel, reference is made to dealing in horses and mules 
 in the fairs of Tarsus. We have not any record as to 
 Avhether the cheating, deception, and over-reaching, which, 
 unfortunately, has from time immemorial, justly or unjust- 
 ly, been associated with the trade in the public mind, 
 ])revailed in those remote days. But English History 
 acquaints us that so great an incubus did " coping " 
 rascality become, an Act of the Legislature was passed in 
 the reign of Richard the Second, instituting a statute by 
 which the prices of horses were regulated. Of course, such 
 a law fell into odium and disuse, as the great individual 
 difference in horses' value became more generally known. 
 The legislature has long, doubtless, bad a thorough know- 
 ledge of the necessity for imposing some restrictive penalty 
 upon this branch of the national traffic ; but from the many 
 difficulties in the way, and the acrimonious jealousy, that 
 anything like legislative interference in private affairs 
 arouses in this country, it has never yet arrived at anything 
 of a protective character more cosmopolitan and enlightened 
 than our licensing horse traders, and our present farcical 
 law of horse warranty. 
 
 I think a quotation from the pen of a gentleman — the 
 Addison of his school of writing — may here be introduced 
 with some effect, as being more fi-ee from the charge of 
 interested motive than anybody so immediately connected 
 with horse trade as myself, could hope to apply to his 
 personal writing. That able penman and popular favourite, 
 NiMROD writes : " The laws relating to selling horses, on 
 
FOR PEACE AND WAR, 95 
 
 warrantry, have been, in themselves, rendered as pro- 
 tective to the purchaser as we believe it is possible for 
 Avords to make them. But the difficulty and uncertainty 
 in appealing to these laws lies in the difficulty and 
 uncertainty of proof, and which may be thus accounted 
 for. In the first place, no evidence is so vague and con- 
 tradictory as that in horse causes, and even when given by 
 perfectly disinterested persons, merely such as are called 
 upon professionally ; secondly, from their almost general 
 ignorance of the economy of the horse, either in theory or 
 practice, both judges and jury often labour under very 
 great disadvantages in their endeavours to get at the truth. 
 Moreover, what says the warranter of a horse — and it is 
 upon warrantry alone that an action of trover can be brought? 
 Why, he first warrants him sound, perhaps free from vice, 
 sometimes quiet to drive in harness, and now and then a 
 good hunter. Now, there is no such equivocal Avord in the 
 English language as the wOrd "sound;" it can only be 
 properly used with reference to an original idea or object, 
 and is, therefore, purely an analogical word. As to its 
 significations, they are too numerous to mention here, nor 
 is its derivation perfectly satisfactory. 
 
 " Then, a warranty of ' free from vice,' is one of a ticklish 
 nature. It might be very difficult to prove any real act of 
 ' vice ' in a horse while in possession of the seller ; and, in 
 the next, a horse from being ill-treated or alarmed, may 
 become vicious in a week ; never having been so before. 
 Equally objectionable is the warranty of 'quiet in harness,' 
 or ' a good hunter.' The horse warranted as the former 
 may be very quiet on the day he was sold, but in a week 
 afterwards, from some mismanagement in the driver, from 
 sudden alarm, or from some of the harness pinching him, 
 he may become a kicker or a runaway. The hunter also 
 may be good for one man, and not worth a shilling to 
 
96 ENGLAND'S HORSES, 
 
 another ; all depending upon the pace at which he is ridden 
 after hounds." So has written the astute and classic Nimrod 
 in his work " The Horse and Hound ; " and he continues 
 the subject to a considerable extent, taking care to give the 
 following caution and advice — not to trust to the glorious 
 uncertainty of law; but to be always provided with the 
 most experienced and honest professional man you can 
 procure, to examine for unsoundness on your behalf before 
 purchase, and with a practical friend or agent, as to the 
 animal's " points," action, capacity for, and adaptability to, 
 the purpose for which he is being purchased. Our author 
 says : — " In fact, as hnoidedge in horseflesh can only be the 
 result of experience, we strongly recommend all inexperi- 
 enced purchasers not to rely on their own judgments ! " 
 Previous to the establishment of my Agency,* nearly 
 twenty years ago, I am not aware that "inexperienced" 
 horse buyers had any resource in this most helplessly 
 pitiable of all incapacities, except they fell back upon the 
 dubious ability of an acquaintance ; or the assumed ability, 
 and, too generally, venal assistance of their groom or coach- 
 man. And what is the common extent of a " friend's " 
 knowledge ? He can tell you a riding horse from a clothes 
 horse ! But his assumption is magnificent, and inflated in 
 proportion to your own ignorance. It don't proceed from a 
 desire to hurt you. But -we are all weak on this subject. 
 You can canvass our musical abilit}^ ; sneer at our artistic 
 taste ; ignore our professions of general knowledge ; pro- 
 nounce our authority in Havanahs nil ; and our taste in 
 wines erroneous. We Britons can patiently endure and 
 forgive this ; but question the man's judgment in" horse 
 flesh, who fancies himself in that line, and you have to the 
 greatest certainty made a mortal enemy ! It is not only a 
 
 * Note. — See Appendix for Terms and Testimonials. 
 
FOR PEACE AND WAR. 97 
 
 weakness but a passion in these Islands to be "liorsey," 
 or considered so. Look how many there are who really 
 don't know which side to mount a horse from, that 
 dress as if they were a cross between a swell and a pad- 
 groom. Some such caricature as gave rise to the definition 
 I have read somewhere, " he was the horsiest 7nan on foot ; 
 and the footiest man on a horse I have ever seen." Such 
 persons, however, are comparatively harmless to the public, 
 but, where we find people with the ignorance of the know- 
 nothing announce themselves as competent assistants to the 
 public in search of horses, it is quite time to raise the finger 
 of warning, and suggest that before submitting to the potent 
 influences of effrontery and emblazonment it, would be well 
 to investigate carefully the respective pretensions and 
 credentials of every man holding himself forth as a " Horse 
 Commissioner." Quack doctors and charlatans come under 
 the ban of the law, but, unhappily for the public, there is 
 no legal restriction to penalize the bold but ignorant 
 assumers of a profession, calling, or trade, that great quick- 
 ness of perception, early association, and the devotion of a 
 life-time can alone make the proficient in. Surely, if agents 
 offering themselves in the horse market are competent for 
 the present, they must have been in the past, and if so, they 
 must be able, somehow, to satisfactorily prove it. Why 
 then not seek for such proof ? 
 
 But, I must apologize ; the matter is to me a personal 
 and a sore one, and has led me from the track I was 
 journeying in. 
 
 The subject of horse-warranty is one of vital importance 
 in the present consideration of " horse supply," and all that 
 can induce to its satisfactory promotion. Protect the pro- 
 ducer — therefore the vendor — and let the customer guard 
 himself by trial with veterinary and public agency supervi- 
 sion. The tender mercies of vendors are, no doubt, not 
 
 H 
 
98 England's horses, 
 
 desirable concessions if any trutli resides in the doctrine of 
 Pomponius, or, the tenets of Erasmus ; the former tells ns 
 " The law of nature allows of over-reaching in buying and 
 selling ; " while the latter would appear to give a " general 
 absolution " in the following words : — 
 
 " Scis quanta impostura sit, apud nos, 
 In his qvii vendunt equos." 
 
 The facility that is given by existing usage to any person 
 competent, or not, to offer himself as an agent for the suf- 
 frages of the jiublic in horse buying and selling, has assisted 
 in no immaterial way to cast disrepute upon horse-dealing 
 transactions to a vastly greater extent than is generally 
 understood. This is much to be lamented, as in the present 
 day it is not easy to name a public servant that would be 
 more desirable and useful than a thoroughly practical, 
 energetic, and conscientious man, with sufficient competency 
 for selection of horses, at a time when exceptional scarcity, 
 and consequent dearness, debars the possibility of the 
 amateur purchaser suiting himself independent of the ex- 
 pensive intervention of the horse-dealer. And Avhen we 
 reflect upon the large responsibility, the great opportunity 
 offered for remunerative dishonesty to such a person as a 
 liorse-agent, is it too much to expect that such a calling 
 should be only eligible to individuals whose capacity could 
 he proved, as in other professions, and the exercise of whose 
 offices could only be legitimately rendered under license ; 
 such license to be restricted to men who could furnish the 
 most satisfactory evidence of their eligibility and " straight 
 sailing " in the line they were devoted to. 
 
 In our time any unprincipled person unable to compete 
 with an established agent in a fair way, can covertly set 
 malignity and slander to defame a rival he detests, because 
 of proved superiority. And we all know how such things, 
 like the schoolboys' snowball, gather as they go. 
 
FOR PEACE AND WAR. 99 
 
 " Rumour is many-tongued, I wis : 
 
 " And they do well who thus depict her ; 
 
 " She is the sister unto babbling echo, 
 
 " Their common parentage is empty sound, 
 
 •' Then give no heed to flying rumour ! " 
 
 The old play writer above quoted, is terse and graphic, 
 hut, notwithstanding the monition in his concluding lines, 
 this charitable world does too often "give ear" to slander 
 of public men, without evincing the common morality to 
 investigate the source and cause from which, what too often 
 would prove to be interested and mendacious, charges of 
 malversation spring. Grant a man in any walk of life the 
 accident of having by some signal individuality taken pre- 
 cedence of others, and " envy, hatred, malice, and all un- 
 charitableness," are too surely launched at him. 
 
 Licenses for horse-agents would go far to remove the con- 
 sequence of such procedure ; for there Avould be a guarantee 
 to the public that a duly, authorized person had given 
 evidence of his eligibility, in a lyrbna facie way, at least, and 
 of his right to be regarded as a tit and trustworthy person. 
 In absence of anything of the kind, the horse market is so 
 over-run with objectionable characters, while at the same 
 time hard-working, honest, and clever judges are to be 
 tound, that the only safety for the public fortunately re- 
 niains in their own hands ; namel}^, trust no man, no matter 
 what appearances may be, without he can produce evidence 
 unimpeachable of his status, from recorded experiences of 
 liis clients in the past, and personal references in the 
 present. 
 
 Whatever a man's struggles and trials in private life may 
 be are his own affairs ; but, in dealing with the public, it is 
 only fair to expect, where much confidence is a necessity of 
 his business, that, as a public man, he should be prepared 
 to show himself worthy of it. And he who can 'produce 
 such evidence in a clear, satisfactory manner, has much to 
 complain of in a state of the laAv wliere, with less study, 
 
100 ENGLAND'S HORSES, 
 
 and not one-tenth of the experience devoted to acquire- 
 ment of competency, other professions are protected and his 
 IS not. 
 
 In the event of the contemplated change in, or abolish- 
 ment of law of warranty, just look at what a boon to the 
 aristocracy would be an agency based upon capacity and 
 integrity alone, that for a reasonable charge would under- 
 take all the disagreeability and critical duty of selection for 
 approval of intending buyer, and, if approved, subsequent 
 negotiation, trial, purchase, and deUvery. Such an agency 
 has mine been for nearly twenty years, and such do other 
 aspirants to public favour profess theirs to be. If com- 
 petency and trustworthiness were alone permitted to offer 
 for public support under a license as in other jDrofessions, 
 I have no doubt but that the business of a faithful^ 
 competent, and appreciated horse agent would rival in 
 emolument a fashionable doctor's annual fees, or the 
 income of many busily employed silk gowns. The 
 Augoean stable required the labours of a Hercules to 
 clean, and, verily, as in our degenerate times no such phy- 
 sical aid can be brought to bear, if even it would apply, 
 the slough into which horses, &c., have at length fallen 
 M'ill want a mighty power of a cathartic and regenerating 
 character to set things straight again. 
 
 High prices now maintaining for horses of soundness and 
 character will, no doubt, lead to stimulation in breeding 
 and increased returns throughout these kingdoms of horse 
 stock for general and war purposes. But supply thus in- 
 duced will as certainly find a commensurate balance some 
 day, and without a revivifying principle we may, in a few 
 years, find ourselves upon the horns of a similar dilemma. 
 
 The most material thing to be considered in contem- 
 plating the solidity of anything is its base. Upon that the 
 whole structure rests, and, in cases of physiological con- 
 
FOR PEACE AND WAR. 101 
 
 struction, entirely depends. We have seen that money will 
 procure us the right Stallions, and it is a conceded fact 
 that the stallion's power upon posterity is, possibly, cent, per 
 cent, more important than the mare's. Notwithstanding 
 which, it would be a fallacious attempt to breed from ob- 
 jectionable mares. I am in a position to assert, and with 
 all courtesy but firmness to challenge contradiction, that, 
 so long as The Foreigner is the better buyer for our 
 young mares — as previous incontestible evidence pro- 
 nounces him to be — than the breeder can find amongst 
 his own countrymen in our open fairs and marts, so 
 long are we, especially in Ireland, sure to have only the 
 refuse of the market to fulfil the important duties of stud 
 matrons. Now then, as this statement admits of no con- 
 tradiction in fact, in what position do we find ourselves ? 
 I need scarcely answer. It is patent to the reader. We 
 must restrict the facilities permitted foreigners (those 
 excellent judges) from taking our choicest mares, and 
 the country must supply a class of sires to the general 
 horse breeder at a tempting tariff that it is impossible 
 for private enterprize to effect. Investors in stallions 
 are parsimonious, except in the few instances where gentle- 
 men of wealth keep a horse for the use of their tenants — 
 and, even then, alas! — too often the first thing con- 
 sidered is what will be the price. The speculator in sires 
 for public use at the very moderate prices that farmers will 
 consent to pay, go in for pedigree and winning brackets in 
 the index to " Weatherby," " rather than for those intrinsic 
 and imperative qualifications of colour, bone, size, action, 
 and quality," that are the considerations alone admissible 
 in the selection of a horse for the pro-creation of sound 
 and valuable stock. Where these qualities are procurable 
 in a thorough-bred stallion he is quite worth 500 guineas, 
 and, if got for much less, the man that sells him is far an 
 easier " parter " than I should be if his owner. 
 
102 England's horses, 
 
 If the legislature interposes there are onlj^ t^vo concur- 
 rent and practicable sources open for beneficial utilization 
 in the breeding and improvement of Avar and general horses, 
 good mares, and suitable stallions, and, if it don't, FascUis 
 descensus Averni ! 
 
 The next consideration is for the holders of our general 
 brood mares. Penalise the consumer as much as 3'ou like, 
 but foster, protect, and cherish the producer by all the 
 encouraging and sustaining legislation you can cast around 
 him. Let the buyer take care of himself — as it is just and 
 reasonable he should — but let the country take care of the 
 breeders and farmers ; the horse-dealers and " customers " 
 are quite match enough for each other, and long odds as 
 outsiders may think it upon the successors of Solomon and 
 the House of Togarmah, I may truthfully say the respect- 
 al )le men of the London trade are far " more sinned against 
 than sinning." Lords, bishops, lawyers, parsons, doctors, 
 sailors, and soldiers have all to be satisfied and kept in 
 good temper too often contrary to justice, reason, and 
 common sense, because men will only see with their own 
 eyes sometimes. Licenses, heavy rents, immense provender 
 and wages accounts have to be paid ; servants (the harpies) 
 have to be tipped ; veterinary surgeons have to be feed ; 
 "deadims" and "roarers" have to be put onto the live 
 and sound ones ; breeders demand prices never heard of 
 before, and, in this expensive and exceptional state of 
 things, West End dealers, who must provide the creme de 
 la creme of the equine race for their stables, are too often 
 pronounced by selfish and unthinking gentlemen extor- 
 tionate in their demands. It is now a good time, we come 
 upon, for consideration of all these things, for where can we 
 expect redress in such matters if not from our present 
 House of Commons, so aptly termed " The 'Squires Parlia- 
 ment"? If, happily, legislative efforts be made, let us. 
 
Foil i'EACE AND WAR. lOo 
 
 hope that they will be general and not partial. It will not 
 be quite enough to produce in improved character and 
 greater quantities the sort of horses Ave now lack, if we do 
 not endeavour to render trade relations concerning them 
 purer, more popular and feasible. To do so we have only 
 to pay the same amount of respect and attention to the 
 principles which direct and the laws that govern horse- 
 trading that we do to some other commercial pursuits. 
 
 Before any one can be capable of guarding others against 
 errors and impositions, he must first make himself master 
 perfectly of in what the evils consist, and how fraud and 
 injustice is practised. To shield others, experience in the 
 cases from which danger may result will suffice ; but to 
 <letect the means by which objectionable practices are put 
 into operation, it becomes imperative to have been brought 
 much into contact with circumstances that give rise to 
 their oi^eration, and to have from actual experience derived 
 an intimate knowledge of the system and machinery that 
 operate to foster and support the dishonest man at the 
 expense of his upright and comparatively helpless neigh- 
 bour. Then, and not till then, is any person or body 
 qualified to give beneficial hints, or make salutary' laws 
 conducive to the protection of the unwary or inexperienced, 
 and to the general credit of the horse-trade when in the 
 hands of dangerous persons. 
 
 I now approach a portion of my subject that I cannot, 
 like the druggist's pills, wrap in silver leaf, for the i:)urpose 
 of permitting the cathartic and invigorating principle of 
 the compound to come into active and salutary operation 
 without imparting (to a certain class) a taste of the bitter. 
 But as classes, as Avell as individuals, are but units to be 
 sacrificed to the great total of public weal ; though, as a 
 man, I may deplore the necessity that inflicts pain upon 
 others, no matter how unworthy ; yet, as a public servant, 
 
104- ENGLAND'S HORSES, 
 
 sympathy for anything, or persons, not according to straight- 
 forward principles is incompatible with that position, and 
 therefore beyond the pale of solicitude. 
 
 Upon the face of the habitable globe there cannot be 
 found to exist among any class of men greater infamy, 
 lower villany, deeper cunning, more skilful hypocrisy, and 
 more daring dishonesty than amongst a large majority of 
 those who get their livelihood in connection with horses. 
 It is supererogatory to remark that in the horse trade are 
 to be found many, the propriety and respectability of whose 
 transactions will bear comparison Avith any trade or profes- 
 sion in existence ; par exemple, such men as George Rice, 
 Ned Fowler, John Renison, and Little Sheward, &c., &c. 
 
 From out the phalanx of unscrupulous talent, however, 
 are drawn habitues of the Livery and Commission Yards ; 
 and, notwithstanding that many proprietors of such places 
 do all that a strong desire to act fairly by their constituents 
 can prompt, to exclude objectionable characters from their 
 premises, their utmost efforts are abortive of their object, 
 as it is a delicate as well as a dangerous course of operation 
 to attempt to fix a stigma upon any individual, except 
 direct proof of culpability is at the disposal of the accuser. 
 And, for very obvious reasons in such cases it cannot be 
 relied upon, no matter how strong individual opinion and 
 individual evidence may be. 
 
 The owners of such establishments may be unimpeach- 
 able ; they may strive with might and main and purest 
 purpose to purge their public yards of the moral rottenness 
 and practical villany that pervade them. But " right is not 
 might." The accumulations of stable abominations in 
 ancient times required the fobled aid of a mythical deity 
 to cleanse, and as in our day moral strength and power 
 rather than physical force must be applied to effectuate a 
 parallel though dissimilar purification, it is by the force 
 
FOR PEACE AND WAR. 105 
 
 alone of reason, enlightenment, and public opinion such a 
 desirable object as the abolition of present irregularities (a 
 mild phrase for the sleepless scheming that pervades and 
 surcharges livery, commission, and auction marts where 
 such characters as I hint at " most do congregate ") can be 
 attained. 
 
 Private sellers and buyers suffer a common grievance 
 from the reason of wrong to both. A majority of vendors 
 acd purchasers of horses have heretofore felt their inferio- 
 rity of judgment in such dealings, while only the common 
 means of redress (if redress it can be called) was at their 
 option. How were they guarded ? What resources had 
 they ? The buyer was all right so long as he could afford 
 to pay the prices which a hrst-class dealer's enormous 
 expenses necessarily demands. Truly, the expensive but 
 respectable horse-dealer is a boon to the wealthy, and 
 but for the many extraneous circumstances that compel 
 him to charge " two prices," might also be useful to less 
 favoured sons of fortune. But he must charge extrava- 
 gantly, or submit to be ruined. His legitimate expenses 
 are something colossal, his risks appalling ; and, let us 
 add, his outgoings for "Tip" beyond computation. To 
 secure custom and sales he has not only to please his in- 
 tending purchaser, but the friends (?) who are often seen 
 at the elbows of the great : the groom, the coachman, 
 and the helpers too, are hypophagists. To meet the 
 rapacity of "hangers-on," retainers, &c., the dealer is in 
 self-defence compelled to " put it on," by asking and getting 
 more than his horse is worth intrinsically, else he should 
 have to pay the indispensable " tip " from legitimate profits, 
 which would be simply ruinous ! Who suffers by all this ? 
 Why, the buyer, Avho, either begrudging the moderate 
 legitimate fee of a clever " commissioner," whose practical 
 experience renders his valuation accurate, or dreading that 
 
luG England's hokses, 
 
 " tip " would find its way to an agent's pocicet that would 
 be so madly unmindful of his own interests and the welfare 
 of his business as by any such dereliction from a straight 
 course to put himself and his reputation in the power of 
 the seller, goes alone, and pays the penalty of this "too 
 clever by half" kind of policy through his banker's account. 
 
 So much for wealthy purchasers, and leaving less rich 
 ones to contend with the various chances of being swindled 
 by " copers," " chaunters," improvised " trustees to a gentle- 
 man deceased," et hoc genus omne, we shall just glance at 
 the position Avhich private sellers occupy. They have few 
 alternatives. In some instances the owners are conversant 
 v.ith horses, and really know a hunter and hack from a 
 buggy horse. But their position and opportunity too fre- 
 ([uently preclude them from attaining to that nice discern- 
 ment in equine trading which leads a practical judge to 
 value a horse with the same trade accuracy that a grocer 
 should a hogshead of sugar, or a butcher a fat bullock. 
 The consequence being that very frequently they have the 
 mortification to discover, Avhen too late, that either a sale 
 had been effected much under value, or that a liberal ofier 
 had been unwisely refused. There are many gentlemen 
 whose position in society and habits in life, whose health 
 and tastes render them totalh^ unfit for the arduous, irri- 
 tating, and disagreeable duties of salesmen of horses. In 
 such cases one of two expedients is only open, if they do 
 not wisely employ a competent and trustworthy Horse 
 Commissioner, namely, entrust their property to the 
 management of servants, who, as a rule, are self-sufficient 
 and incompetent in such transactions, if not luorse, or to 
 consign their horses for sale to some public mart. 
 
 We have, all of us who visit such places, seen hanging 
 about horse auction marts, from year's end to year's end, a 
 lounging but vigilant-looking lot of fellows, whose peculiar 
 
FOIl PEACE AND WAR. 107 
 
 " get up " is sufficiently characteristic to assign tliem their 
 unenviable grade, without any display of their tastes and 
 habits through their conversation. If the knocker-knees 
 and tight-fitting trousers be not present to proclaim their 
 identity, and the gaudy scarf or ash-plant be laid aside, the 
 ])cculiar and jauntily-carried hat, or some other salient and 
 inseparable et cetera of the low horse dealer's external man 
 will surely be there to proclaim to the cognoscenti, as with 
 the voice of a stentor, the presence of one or more of those 
 industrious and unscrupulous individuals that has been 
 well but inelegantly described as "a cove with his weather- 
 eye open, invariably looking out for squalls ; " while to the 
 uninitiated and simple, they pass merely for what they 
 seem — men about horses. Amongst persons of this appear- 
 ance, however, will be found the hard-working, industrious, 
 " as-honest-as-I-can " kind of poor fellow ; but he is " as 
 snow in summer," as " angels' visits," a white black-bird, 
 or anything else very rare. These fellows are mostly an 
 organized gang, whose object is to prevent sales of valuable 
 and useful horses from being effected, until by their efforts 
 the horse's character is so injured that he must either fall 
 a prey much under value to some of the clique, or be re- 
 moved unsold after the heavy expenses of livery, advertise- 
 ment, travelling, &c., has been paid by the unfortunate 
 owner. This is technically called "crabbing." They do 
 nothing openly that can be effected secretly, and thus their 
 delinquencies, though well known to exist, are permitted to 
 remain unmolested. Besides, looking at the thing in a 
 business point of view, they buy and sell many horses, are 
 ready cash customers ; and it is therefore wiser in the esti- 
 mation of even some proprietors from whom the public have 
 a right to expect a higher code of morality, not to look out 
 at the "corners of their eyes" for objects that will not 
 offend their vision if they gaze before them in the ordinary 
 
lOS ENGLAND'S HORSES, 
 
 way of such persons. Under such a dispensation, how can 
 we be surprised at the constant and long accruing com- 
 plaints of breeders of general horses as to what an unprofit- 
 able speculation that is, where, after the production of the 
 commodity, there are so many obstacles to its remunerative 
 disposal through such a common channel for forcing a 
 market. So, with organized villany to impede the seller, 
 and incapacity in judgment that leaves the buyer too open 
 to the ruse of the "chaunter," and numerous other objec- 
 tionable and potent impedimenta, it needs not one to be 
 much skilled in the mysteries of Demoivre and the doctrine 
 of chances to discern that " the odds " are all against the 
 gentlemen and breeders, and that an honest and efficient 
 agent for their mutual protection, under the existing state 
 of things, is a practical necessity of the times, and that 
 such a man cannot fail to enlist influential support, and, if 
 true to his mission, soar above the united animosity of 
 slander and malevolence from the interested or the envious 
 detraction that is a natural consequence of his position. 
 
 The diiference, too, between the agent who has no interest 
 at conflict with his client and the commissioner who keeps 
 livery stables, is well worth consideration. The only 
 jjossible benefit that can arise to the former will proceed 
 only from a sale, so that the sooner he brings a buyer to 
 the stable of the owner the sooner will he derive the benefit 
 arising from the only possible source of emolument to him, 
 namely, the sale of the animal. Thus giving at once 
 between such agent and his employer a community of 
 interest. The large jirofits arising from livery bills are 
 matters of irritating notoriety to consigners. 
 
FOR PEACE AND WAR. 109 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 It is apparent to the trained reader, that the production ul' 
 these pages evince anything but an attempt at concisi' 
 book-making; as the thoughts arise they have been jotted 
 down without any regularity or order, not at all in the hope 
 of making a well ordered little volume, but with the inten- 
 tion of getting rid of something the writer very badly 
 wanted to say. This may be accepted as an explanation 
 why I have introduced matter not directly applying to the 
 main feature of the book, though somewhat pertinent 
 thereto. 
 
 A vexed question, that has had much valuable ventilation 
 in that excellent country gentleman's journal. The Field, 
 recently, is that of horse-warranty and horse examinations. 
 I have before said a word or two on the subject of sound- 
 ness, and I do not like to omit my views as to examinations 
 by Veterinary Surgeons. What is it a buyer wants ? A 
 sound horse! What is a sound horse? He must be 
 ])hysically capable of discharging the duties, well and con- 
 tinuously for a reasonable time, for which he has been 
 selected with a view to purchase. Ought not that to be all 
 that a buyer should require ? But, is it so ? Certainly it 
 is not ! There are some Veterinary Surgeons with sufficient 
 common sense and good feeling to recommend horses that 
 in their professional capacity they cannot give a " clean 
 
110 EXGLAXDS HORSES, 
 
 certificate " with. But there are otliers notorious for not 
 only rejecting horses for the most trivial and unimportant 
 things, having nothing at all to do with soundness, but 
 filling up their certificates with observations not at all be- 
 longing to the province of a qualified and respectable 
 ^I.R.C.Y.S. What do we expect of a Veterinary Surgeon 
 when we ask his advice as to soundness ? What is his 
 duty in such case ? Simply, tliat he inspects the horse for 
 disease and lameness; and, if free from these, he is pro- 
 fessionally sound. Once the veterinary descends to ol)ser- 
 vations outside, or rather beneath his professional status, he 
 volunteers an office that neither duty or propriety demands 
 of him. If a gentleman, or tradesman, has had the trouble 
 of showing his horse, and submitting him to a trial more or 
 less arduous, and that he has sold him "subject to a Vet.'s 
 opinion," he ought to expect he is bringing his horse to 
 such establishments to be professionally examined for 
 disease, and not for the purpose of undergoing a second 
 overhauling for the very qualifications he has already satis- 
 fied the intending buyer about. But in notorious instances 
 the nuisance of this derogation from professional conduct 
 has become quite a standing grievance. This is a great 
 pity, for, no doul)t, the error is committed from over zeal 
 and not a desire for the pubJicity of a hypercritical character 
 that induces to large practice with intending purchasers. 
 
 It is quite time that something like a rule, or a law, 
 should be come to upon the subject of soundness or un- 
 soundness in horses ; for while left an open question as to 
 what constitutes it, it is plain that opinion in many cases 
 will be varied according to the order of mind rather than, 
 the professional capacity of the inspectors ; and an indi- 
 vidual experience so varied, old, and practical as mine has 
 been, enables me to declare that if any given horse be 
 subjected to the professional inspection of four leading 
 
FOR PEACE AND WAR. Ill 
 
 veterinary surgeons, the odds are that they will not be 
 unanimous in opinion. 
 
 As our Courts of Law have been too frequently made the 
 arena for questions as to soundness, it will be expedient to 
 look at the views taken by some of our ablest legal autho- 
 rities upon the subject. 
 
 Chief Justice Best, in the case of Best v. Osborne, held 
 that " sound " meant perfect. 
 
 Mr. Baron Parke said — " The word ' sound ' means what 
 it expresses, namely, that the animal is sound and free from 
 disease at the time he is warranted ; " and in the same case, 
 Mr. Baron Alderson said — " The word ' sound ' means sound, 
 and the only qualitication of which it is susceptible arises 
 from the purpose for which the warranty is given." 
 
 A horse may be defined to be "sound" when he is free 
 from hereditary disease, is in possession of his natural 
 physical powers and constitutional health, and has as much 
 bodily perfection as is consistent with his individual forma- 
 tion ; which latter consideration is the province of the 
 purchaser, and not of the veterinary examiner, except 
 specially retained to combine with his professional duties 
 an extraneous office. 
 
 Lord EUenborough said — '■' It has been held by very high 
 authority (Sir James Mansfield, C I.) that roaring is not 
 necessarily unsoundness, and I (Lord EUenborough) entirely 
 concur in that opinion. If the horse emits a loud noise 
 which is offensive to the ear, merely from a bad habit 
 which he has contracted, or from any cause Avhich does 
 not interfere with his general health or muscular powers, 
 he is still to be considered a sound horse. On the other 
 hand, if the roaring proceeds from any disease, or organic 
 infirmity, Avhich renders him incapable of performing the 
 usual functions of a horse, then it does constitute unsound- 
 ness. Tlie plaintiff has not done enough in showing that 
 
112 England's horses, 
 
 this horse was a roarer. To prove a breach of warranty, he 
 must go on to show that the roaring was symptomatic of 
 disease.'' 
 
 Mr. Baron Parke says — " If the disease was not of a 
 nature to impede the natural usefuhiess of the animal for 
 the purpose for which he is used — as, for instance, if a 
 horse had a slight pimple on his skin, it would not amount 
 to unsoundness ; but even if such a thing as a pimple were 
 on some parts of the body where it might have that eft'ect 
 — for instance, on a part which would prevent the putting 
 a saddle or bridle on the animal, it would then be dif- 
 ferent." 
 
 Now, with all this " rubbish " confronting us from the 
 judicial bench, is it not apparent that simple and effective 
 legislation, comprehensive in theory and handy in practice, 
 is demanded ? A careful perusal of all the trials upon 
 veterinary jurisprudence for a quarter of a century that 
 have come under my notice, have led me to form the 
 opinion that an effective measure may be arrived at for the 
 abolition of conflicting evidence and judicial ignorance in 
 " horse cases." 
 
 I would abolish warranty altogether, as the very root of 
 all the trouble, perjury, worry, and infamy, that characterise 
 litigations arising from sale and purchase of horses. I 
 would substitute for it a liberal trial, dependent for its du- 
 ration upon the fitness of the individual animal. For what 
 might be only a " bit of exercise " for a horse " in work,'* 
 would, too often, result in the ruin of a valuable animal 
 prepared and standing for sale. After the trial, the sound- 
 ness or unsoundess of the horse remained with the vete- 
 rinary surgeon selected by the purchaser to examine for 
 him, 
 
 A veterinary surgeon is placed in the position of, say, a 
 solicitor. The party requiring his servic 3s is his client for 
 
FOR PEACE AND WAR. 113 
 
 the time during which the professional is exercising his 
 offices upon his behalf. Of course, if the buyer instructs 
 his adviser to examine for legal soundness, he knows his 
 duty. But, where so many really valuable horses for the 
 purpose for which their qualifications and education adapt 
 them are not legally sound, how much more expedient is it 
 for an intending buyer to say to the "Vet.," " I have agreed 
 to purchase this horse for such or such work, have the 
 goodness to look him over, and say is there anything to 
 prevent this animal proving serviceable ? " Look what a 
 lot of useless verbiage and consequent bewilderment in the 
 minds of a majority of buyers this would get rid of ! They 
 do not want to know that a horse has " a sjjeck on his eye," a 
 " slight splent," a " small foot," or " an incipient spavin ; " 
 " has a hoarseness in his breathing," or " makes a whistling 
 noise, and is, consequently, unsound." He may have one, 
 or all those infirmities, and be still worth a lot of money. 
 Get rid of technicalities and legal soundness, and let these 
 questions be dependent upon the opinion of the professional 
 selected by the purchaser to do duty for him. Let the 
 general understanding be that, if such men as Messrs. 
 Mavor, Field, South, Cox, Mr. Stevens, Mr. Williams, and 
 such other respectable London practitioners can say, " I 
 have examined this horse and I think he will, or I think 
 he won't, serviceably discharge the duties for which you 
 propose to buy him," then, I say, let that be final and con- 
 clusive one way or other ! 
 
 Such a course would reduce the now complicated system 
 of buying and selling horses to a very open, fair, and 
 general matter of barter and sale. Would free the breeders 
 from an incubus too heavy for them to bear, as having been 
 notoriously perverted against them by horse-dealers ; and 
 do more to give a stimulus, so desirable, to the breeding 
 and keeping of horse-stock by farmers and country gentle- 
 
114 England's horses, 
 
 men for sale than we can at all imagine. Supplement this 
 by total abolishment of horse-dealers' licence, and the pe- 
 nalizing with the necessity of license Horse Commission 
 Agents, and a very short time, I think, would show the 
 value of any such course of action towards stimulating the 
 horse supply in these kingdoms. 
 
 To avoid misconception, I may observe, I am aware that 
 Horse Commission Agents that keep livery stables have 
 been held to be liable to pay Horse-Dealers' duty, but those 
 who act as Agents, and have no stables, go " scot free," a 
 very premium upon adventure. 
 
FOR PEACE AND WAR. 115 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Ancient and modern writers, from the dawn of civilization 
 to the imperial crowning of " William the Divine," at Ver- 
 sailles, have had included amongst those Avriting on horses 
 and horse matters, statesmen, philosophers, rural-economists, 
 poets, historians, sportsmen, veterinarians, physiologists, 
 and variously impregnated amateurs. From the time of 
 Job, through Homer, Xenophon, Aristotle, and Herodotus, 
 on through the works of Buffon, Cuvier, and Bell, and 
 hosts of others, the horse has, from one motive or another, 
 been the object of careful investigation, and frequently 
 vivid and poetic as well as practical and exhaustive descrip- 
 tion. It is questionable, however, that the enquiry, though 
 long and minute, has had more of research of a general 
 character regarding the natural history of the animal than 
 with regard to his strictly domestic relations to man, in his 
 subjugated and imi^roved state, dealing with those character- 
 istics and attributes that an advanced civihzation and the 
 modern requirements of war, fashion, or sport, together 
 with the demands of commercial and agricultural pursuits 
 call for, as all important to us as a people in these work-a- 
 day and shifting times of the nineteenth century. 
 
 Like the Irish postillion who keeps a gallop for the 
 avenue, with the wise and laudable view of pleasing his 
 " fare " before the important moment, to the Jehu, of 
 
IIG England's horses, 
 
 parting for the day, so I have reserved for my closing- 
 page the Briareiis-handed poAver wielded by Mr. Edmund 
 Tattersall in anything regarding questions of " horse 
 supply." It is not only that in him is now concentrated 
 all the fame of the world-wide institution of which he 
 remains "the bright particular star," but that personally 
 he has secured for himself, by individual woi-th through a 
 life of signal ability, coupled with strictest integrity, the 
 approved respect and friendship of both great and smalL 
 For amongst the "small talk" that one is sure to hear in all 
 classes connected with horses about " Tattersall's," and all 
 connected with it, whatever may be the observations with 
 regard to others, there is but one verdict when his name is 
 mentioned — " Oh, Tattersall is a gentleman, and a thunder- 
 ing good fellow into the bargain." I, therefore, thought, 
 and think, that at the " wind up " of my chat with the 
 reader, nothing could prove more agreeable and interesting 
 than a resumS from " Mr. Edmund's " out-spoken opinions 
 upon a congenial occasion on the subject we are engaged 
 with. 
 MR. E. TATTERSALL ON THE SUPPLY OF ENGLISH 
 CAVALRY HORSES. 
 Read before the Farmers Club, Monday, March 6th, 1871. 
 In introduciug to the Farmers' Club this important subject, Mr. 
 Tattersall read a letter, written by him in the summer of 1870, 
 and published in Bell's Life on September the 10th, of the same 
 year. " I shall have," said Mr. Tattersall, in his speech to the 
 Farmers' Club, " the opportunity of reading to you letters, and 
 giving you information from the highest authorities in Prussia and 
 in Austria, showing you what the enlightened governments of 
 those countries have done, and are doing ; and thus, I think, you 
 will come to the conclusion ' that, as in other things, we Enghsh- 
 men are not placed in our right position, and therefore lose caste 
 in Europe. As we have upwards of 30 millions of the bravest 
 
FOR PEACE AND WAR. 117 
 
 people in the world, and no efficient army — as we have the finest 
 volunteer force in the world, and it is snubbed and kept down by 
 military jealousy — as we have the best engineers and mechanics, 
 and are short of guns and short of powder, as in all other things 
 with us unready Saxons, so it is with our Cavalry. We have the 
 best breed of horses in the world, sought after by all other coun- 
 tries, and yet our Cavalry are badly mounted, and are not what 
 they ought to be ! and for all this who is to blame 1 Why the 
 people at large — you amongst the rest — who ought to speak out 
 through your members of Parliament, and through the " press ; " 
 and let those know who manage your affairs, that above all things 
 we will have an effective army, ample guns, artillery of the best, 
 with horses of the best class to draw them, without which they 
 are useless ; and cavalry horses of the highest class, to mount 
 our cavalry soldiers upon, with ample reserves, which in cavalry 
 is most important ; for though we may buy horses in haste for 
 draught horses, you cannot make a horse a broke charger under a 
 year or two, any more than you can a good cavalry soldier to ride 
 him. Let us then have no more cheese-paring Chancellors of the 
 Exchequer ; they do not pay in the long run any more than other 
 cheap articles. Let us have the best horses at any cost ; it is the 
 cheapest in the end, and all the money is spent amongst the 
 farmers and breeders who pay the Queen's taxes. At the present 
 moment, under sudden pressure, we require a much larger number 
 of cavalry chargers than usual. As the late Lord Hobart said, 
 we are always vibrating between parsimony and panic. Just now 
 we are something in the latter stage — in other words we are not 
 prepared ; we want 4,000 horses ; 2,000 of them for artillery, 
 for which £40 each will be given. These they may get, but there 
 will be much difficulty in getting the other 2,000 for cavalry, such as 
 they ought to he, to carry heavy weights long distances,* and without 
 that they are useless for work of war, and not fit for much in time 
 of peace, and when you have got them they will take from one to 
 two years to make. 
 
 * Note.— Does not this assertion, from such a source, impress the reader 
 with the justice of the author's theory as to degeneracy in our breed of 
 general horses. 
 
118 England's horses, 
 
 About 30,000 horses have gone from England to France during 
 the war. At the time our Government ("the hlessed Liberals") 
 were hesitating about giving £40 each for 2,000 artillery horses, 
 Gambetta sent an order to give from £45 to £50 for 2,000. And 
 this, I suppose, decided our authorities to give £40 ; so that we 
 may thank Gambetta for getting us a better article. 
 
 In the Crimean war £40 was given ; since then the price came 
 down to £30 for three-year-olds, and £35 for four-year-olds ; then 
 no four-year-olds were bought at the time except they could be 
 bought at the same price. Farmers and breeders would sell 
 useful lean three-year-olds early in the year for £30, but would 
 not keep them till four at anything like the same price, as they 
 found useful horses worth £40 or more. Then the Prussians and 
 Austrians came into the market, and bought up all the quick, 
 active horses, at from £35 to £40, or £45 each. In seven years, 
 from the two ports of Hull and Harwich alone, about 14,000 mares 
 were sent off These were the mares which we ought to have 
 retained to breed from. They are the very things we now want. 
 If one-half only had remained to become brood mares, we ought to 
 have had, at least, 5,000 horses per annum from them, and they 
 would most of them have remained in the country had the price 
 given for our troop horses been £5 higher ; therefore you are suffer- 
 ing from the effect of buying a low-priced and inferior article in 
 two ways. Most of the light troopers, of late years, have been pur- 
 clmsed in Ireland, at about £30. The price given has not been 
 enough to induce breeders to breed and keep good animals for the 
 purpose of the army, more especially as the demand has been 
 small and intermitting,* instead of remunerative and continuous. 
 
 The mares are gone, and it ivill take years to replace them.f 
 The price of horses, like everything else, is higher in England 
 than elsewhere, and is not likely to be cheaper, but dearer. Up- 
 wards of 60,000 were eaten in Paris. How many were used up 
 
 * Why should it be so with a large per centage of our cavalry soldiers on foot, 
 and our Artillery inefficiently horsed ? The author don't know. Better ask the 
 " blessed Liberals !" 
 
 f Thank our stars for that, if we only replace them, as we may do, with im- 
 proved quality. 
 
FOR PEACE AND WAR. 119 
 
 and eaten during the war it is impossible to say, but it must leave 
 a very large demand in the future. 
 
 As our farmers and breeders can grow cattle and sheep of any size 
 or shape, and to the greatest perfection, so can they grow horses of 
 any stamp ;'^ but they must be grown to pay, or they will not be 
 grown by men who have got their living to get by their business. 
 
 The sort of animals we want to carry troopers is a short-legged, 
 active hunter, not the Leicestershire horse, but the horse for the 
 shires and chase counties. This horse, good of his kind, is worth 
 50 to 60 guineas in a fair at four years old, and many of them 
 100 guineas or more. (The author has seen them sell for 200 
 and 250 guineas.) How, then, can they be got for £30 at three 
 years old, and for £40 at four years old, except the inferior 
 animals that dealers and others won't buy 1 Such a horse as I 
 have described ought to be able to carry 16 stone from London to 
 Brighton (fifty miles) in the day, and back to Loudon the next 
 .... but where would you find a trooper's horse to do it ? or 
 how many out of one hundred of them would get to Brighton and 
 back in two days 1 If they cannot do this they are not efficient, 
 and therefore valueless in an emergency. 
 
 As far as I can ascertain, we have not more than 10,000 
 cavalry, and these only on paper. What the real number of 
 horses trained to their work, and fit to carry men, I have no 
 means of knowing; but as we want 4,000 this year, or much 
 more than one- third of the whole amount, it looks as if the parsi- 
 monious fit had been "a long one this time, and therefore now 
 requires a large and sudden outlay. In Prussia and Austria the 
 calculation is about 10 per ceut. annually, so that we ought really 
 to want 1,000. As we want 4,000, it is 40 per ceut. in lieu of 
 10, and this is what they call economy ! 
 
 In Austria and Prussia they have all they want— and reserves. 
 They are ready ; we are not. Which is the best and cheapest in 
 the end 1 
 
 I will tell you, gentlemen, what they do in Austria, and I get 
 my information from an ofl&cer of cavalry, who was a great 
 
 * Note. — ^Bravo ! Mr. Tattersall, that is the point. But they won't do so 
 without they can get the proper seed for the desired crop. 
 
120 ENGLAND'S HORSES, 
 
 many years in the Austrian Service, and one of the best judges of 
 horses met with, and who was constantly employed for purchase 
 of horses for the cavalry in Austria, and of horses, stallions, and 
 mares (thorough-bred), obtained from this country for the Aus- 
 trian Government, and who has attended many of our agricultural 
 shows. The Colonel tells me that they have about 4,000 stallions 
 covering gratis, or at a mere nominal fee, for the Government. 
 They have no prior claim on the produce. The re-mount depart- 
 ment of the State purchases, as any one else, in the open market, 
 at about the following prices : — Heavy cavalry and heavy artillery 
 at about ^632 ; light cavalry, £25 ; pack horses, £15. I believe 
 they buy nothing under four or five years old. In 1854, he pur- 
 chased in one district for the re-mount 15,000 horses in about 
 four weeks at those prices, and good useful horses, which were all 
 passed by the officers appointed, who are very particular. 
 
 There are several public breeeding studs. 
 
 The stud at Kisberr was established by the present Emperor, 
 and is entirely of English blood. For this stud were bought 
 Buccaneer for 3,000 guineas; Ostregor, I sold for 3,000 guineas; 
 Teddington (Derby winner), 1,400 guineas ; Daniel O'Rourke 
 (Derby winner), 800 guineas ; Sabreur, Codrington, Oakball, and 
 others, high-class thorough-bred horses, amounting from twenty 
 to twenty-five in number, all bought since 1860. Forty thorough- 
 bred mares were purchased for this stud at an average of 200 
 guineas each, at Sir Tatton Sykes's sale alone, and many others 
 partly thorough-bred, partly half-bred mares, amounting to be- 
 tween 300 and 400. Besides, the Colonel purchased in two or 
 three years about 150 mares, the best of the old Irish blood, for 
 Austria. He would not huy half-bred English mares, however good- 
 loohing, for this stud, because he could not depend on their back blood, 
 and was afraid of their throwing back to the cart or under-bred 
 horse, and so prove soft and slow and therefore bad. 
 
 From this stud, commencing from the best stallions from 
 England, are bred the stallions which are sent into the country 
 to breed from, so that Austria and Hungary deserve to have, and 
 have good horses. 
 
FOR PEACE AND WAR. 121 
 
 Eecent events have taught us, with the stern logic of facts as 
 startling as the world ever saw, that, believing in the doctrine of 
 universal peace, we have been living in a fool's paradise. The 
 Millennium has not yet come — the lion has not lain down with 
 the lamb — and when he does, as the Yankee said, " I guess the 
 lamb will be inside the lion ! " 
 
 We must be like the strong man armed, especially in cavalry 
 and artillery, and then, once more, we shall be feared and re- 
 spected by our neighbours, and the " Civis Eomanus Sum " of 
 Lord Palmerston will be no idle boast when once more it is under- 
 stood, that the same meaning is conveyed in the words — " I am 
 an Englishman." 
 
 In the handling of our present subjects, I have deemed 
 it desirable and interesting to trace from remote sources the 
 " changes and chances " that have given to us that noble 
 type of the eqiius caballus that has long distinguished the 
 British Isles, remarking upon the causes that produced him, 
 and pointing to the existing and accruing dangers that 
 have degenerated and threaten to effectually deteriorate 
 him if pursued. My main oly'ect, however, has been to keep 
 my theme before the reader, so that when dealing with 
 pertinent matter thereto, it might be considered that my 
 research or digression was more with the view " to point a 
 moral than to adorn a tale." 
 
 I hope to have not, at least, failed to impress the reader 
 with the undoubted axiom and matter of most important 
 consideration, that it is preferable and wiser to have that 
 source from which good or evil must necessarily proceed of 
 such character and merit as will insure beneficial rather 
 than deleterious results ; and that to provide us with 
 sound, stout, and reliable horses for our exigencies in peace 
 or war, it is incontestably necessary to take care that 
 the parents, especially the males, are of as fine, pure, and 
 sound a type as can be procured. Keader, I submit I 
 
122 ENGLAND'S HORSES, 
 
 have established this; and before closing the subject of 
 our nervous consideration, I must once more ask you 
 to consider, 'per contra, what have we to look at. A 
 perfectly free and ignorant system of horse breeding 
 amongst the class and throughout the districts in these 
 kingdoms from which the vast majority of our general 
 horses proceed. A stallion gaining custom from the 
 popularity of an owner perfectly regardless of his own 
 good or bad qualities. Fillies only preserved to the 
 country that from some objectionable qualifications render 
 them beneath the speculative notice of a foreign agent. 
 For years, as I have before said, colonels of cavalry 
 regiments, contractors, veterinary surgeons, and practical 
 men, in newspaper columns, have been registering ex- 
 periences tending to exhibit shortness of supply, and 
 want of the "wear and tear" characteristics in our general 
 horses of a former period. Notwithstanding which, yearly 
 recurring and increasing evils are allowed — without any 
 countervailing attempt of a national character — to sow 
 the seeds of carelessness and ignorance, that gives in its 
 own time a croj) of disappointment, chagrin, alarm, and 
 disgust. And why should this be ? Is it because the 
 general English public is less at home upon the subject of 
 horses than upon almost any other ? Ought not that to be 
 the chief reason why those confided with the nation's in- 
 terests should be the more punctiliously careful ? We 
 have not the excuse of want of alarming warnings, or prac- 
 tical examples, as to the huge preponderating power that 
 such an arm as a powerful and efficiently-mounted cavalry 
 gives. We know, too, from the Royal Commission en- 
 quiries what our cavalry state is at present, and what it 
 promises to be in the future under the existing state of 
 things. We learn that the Franco-Prussian war has caused 
 the deportation of thousands of most objectionable mares 
 
FOR PEACE AND WAR, 123 
 
 from these kingdoms, chiefly from Ireland, our greatest 
 nursery. Everything concurs in pointing to the present as 
 an opportune period for making a national stand against 
 the nation's insidious and parasitic foe, a foe bred of apathy 
 and ignorance, and fostered in cruel carelessness and censur- 
 able folly. When, alongside such views, we glance at the 
 effect of continental judgment, energy, enterprise, and gold 
 upon their and this country's horses through our open marts 
 and ports for years past, be assured the picture is both a sad 
 and serious one for any patriotic Briton to contemj)late. 
 France and Germany have year by year for a long time taken 
 a majority of the best half-bred mares, nay, all they could 
 get ! Those very mares that properly should have been 
 the seed from which our cavalry not theirs should grow re- 
 mounts. 
 
 We are now — it is a matter of general notoriety — de- 
 pendent upon foreign breeders, and that, save for the im- 
 portations from abroad that fill the high class horse-dealing 
 stables, horses for the ordinary purposes of fashionable life 
 would not he forthcoming at any "price. Happily the 
 enormous prices for high-class horses that scarcity has be- 
 got in this country, has violently assailed the English 
 aristocracy in that most sensitive part of an Englishman's 
 system — his " breeches pocket." This pull upon the ex- 
 chequer and temper of some of our magnates will conduce 
 to making our subject more Aveighty as being so purely 
 personal ; and it is to be hoped that the searching influence 
 of depletion in the purse will stimulate to an exercise 
 of patriotism that, no doubt, only slumbered with the 
 great and enlightened ; and having been once aroused will 
 awaken to a vigorous existence. " Out of evil comes good," 
 and, I think, we shall find a wholesome agitation before 
 long in the senate house of England on this subject of short 
 and inefficient supply of England's Horses for Peace 
 AND War. 
 
124 England's horses, 
 
 If such results, the recent Continental War will have in 
 one respect done England good service, by having conduced 
 to a state of things by the closing of Continental Ports that 
 first led to the general knowledge of our home scarcity by 
 stoj)j)ing the annual, nay, weekly imports from abroad, for 
 a time. Had those supplies continued unimpeded we might 
 have gone on in general ignorance of our state till a time 
 when the course that has been running its exhaustive way 
 would have left us in a much worse state for regenerative 
 efforts than we are now. 
 
 If, then, it can be incontestably deduced from evidence, 
 too sadly incontrovertible, that a majority of our j^wr sang 
 horses are painfully unstable, effete, and decrepit, happily, 
 we can produce very superior examples of high class 
 animals of the same caste — the best of this order — but 
 removed by their super-excellence from the immediate 
 cliannels of general utility ; nevertheless, numbers of sound 
 and suitable stallions that have failed in those qualifications 
 of speed, that is now the ne plus ultra of the racing arena, 
 may be annually culled from the training stables at the 
 " back end " of the turf season, applicable in every particu- 
 lar for the purposes of regenerating and improving our 
 general and war horses, but at no " screw prices." 
 
 We have only to be competent and careful in selection, 
 and judicious in placing such stallions where a wide and 
 fertile field for their services will be open. And thus, 
 having so far conformed to the leading princijjle of " the 
 universal mother," in her own domains, by resorting for 
 the benefit of posterity to the best males, let us confidently 
 rely for results upon the unerring accuracy and sufiiciency 
 of that omnipotent dispensation that cannot err, and to 
 which we thus become disciples. 
 
 Much mischief as has befallen this the most noble of his 
 brute servants, from man's folly and vain-glory in the pros- 
 
FOR PEACE AND WAR. 12.') 
 
 titution to his pomps and vices of a glorious animal given 
 for different pm'j^oses — that has been his greatest physical 
 auxiliary in the march from barbarism to civilization — this 
 return, at even the eleventh hour, to the exercise of wise 
 natural laws in our equine economy will be, unquestionably, 
 attended with most satisfactory benefits, for — 
 
 "If Nature be driven out with proud disdain, 
 The powerful goddess will return again ; 
 Return in triumph to deride 
 The vain attempts of luxury and pride ! " 
 
 If we acknowledge the national misfortune forced upon 
 our appreciation by existing facts, and grant that we have 
 the remedy to a frightful evil in our own hands, what are 
 we going to do ? How harmoniously the nervous and 
 caustic suggestion of my gallant and able brother-in-arms, 
 " Picador," in Bell's Life, and " Vieille Moustache," in The 
 Field, harks in here ; he writes on this subject in March, 
 1871: — "'If you want a thing well done,' said his Iron 
 Grace, the late Duke of Wellington, ' do it yourself If the 
 state desires a good supply of horses in time to come, it 
 must 'set its shoulders to the wheel ;' and while pessimists 
 are lamenting the extinction of their favourite class of 
 horse, and optimists building castles in the air and enuncia- 
 ting visionary schemes, which can never be realized, the 
 state must work while others are writing or thinking. 
 Then, and not till then, will it be in a fair way to render 
 itself independent of foreign supply, or private enterprise 
 at home." 
 
 Words of wisdom these. It is a state question, and is 
 only susceptible of treatment through national legislation 
 and aid. For, although in a wealthy country like this 
 private enterprise may, nay ! will answer to the demand for 
 supply through advanced market quotations, I am, from out 
 my practical experience, fully persuaded that though the 
 number of our general horses wiU surely increase under the 
 
126 ENGLAND S HORSES, 
 
 consequences from exceptional scarcity, nevertheless, private 
 enterprise will never produce for general utility that class 
 of sire which alone can improve the race of our general 
 horses, and maintain them in high excellence, from the 
 self-evident reason, that the emolument to be derived from 
 public stallions of high character would not pay the outlay 
 imperative upon their procuration and maintenance. 
 
 There is no getting away from this axiom, and whatever 
 may be the course of the Government when called upon to 
 legislate for a question that brooks no longer " shelving " — 
 the better direction and promotion of the supply of Eng- 
 land's Horses for Peace and War — there is the hete 
 noir no casuistry or sophistry can anyhow dispose of, nor 
 can it be amply treated but by acceding to the plague spot, 
 and adopting prompt and practical measures to neutralize 
 its painfully suggestive consequences. 
 
 See we not our position ? Do we not ponder with sad 
 forebodings upon the evidences we have perused from 
 sources that, alas ! admit of no doubt ? Are not the remarks 
 we have read from Cavalry Colonels, Army Contractors, and 
 others, alarmingly suggestive of possible retribution for a 
 national crime ? Yes, crime ! War is a possible contingency 
 for this great nation. Horses are required in war. We see 
 from example of recent times what an immense power they 
 are. Our Cavalry strength in re-mounts is incomplete, so 
 with our Artillery. What are we to do ? Why, make up for 
 lost time and stupidity by energy, talent, and wisdom. 
 Have we not sadly exemplified the parable of " The Unwise 
 Virgins" ? May not the time for prejjaration pass ? the 
 hour of necessity be at hand ? and we too late for present 
 emergency ? but, happily, not so for future provision. 
 
 Except the country is satisfied to dispose of these con- 
 siderations, and content to lose that safety and prestige 
 which attaches to it, of possessing the best horses and best 
 
FOR PEACE AND WAR. 127 
 
 mounted cavalry in the world, some national effort must 
 be made to alter the existing state of things regarding the 
 falling away in numbers and quality of our re-mount and 
 general horses. What so largely contributed to give 
 Cromwell's Ironsides so brilliant a jiage in History ? What 
 rode our mounted soldiers in the days of Ligonier's black 
 horse to glory and conquest ? What carried our mail-clad 
 warriors, " Scots' Greys," and poor Erin's " Green Horse," 
 through the chosen and serried ranks of France's great hero 
 to the crowning victory of Waterloo ? What bore with the 
 irresistible career of a swooping eagle " our Immortal Six 
 Hundred" over the flower of Russia's chivalry and her 
 barbarian hordes ? Oh ! it was our glorious British horses, 
 fleet, powerful, and beautiful; true as hearts of oak, and 
 trusty as the puissant and flashing steel of their hero 
 riders. And, shall we lose them ? Yes ! England, with 
 sorrow I write the appalling conviction, a continuance of 
 the present system, or rather, no system, and they will be 
 known only to posterity through history or by tradition, 
 " vanished as a tale that was told." 
 
128 England's horses. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Having thus far treated of " England's Horses for Peace and 
 War," in the past, present, and future, I venture to carry out my 
 efforts on the noble animals' part still further by submitting for 
 public consideration what I diffidently, but with confidence, 
 entitle : — 
 
 EUREKA! 
 The Powers of the Horse, — Their True Seat. 
 
 In order that we may best apply the animal powers of the horse, 
 with least waste or diminution to the will of man, in draught or 
 burthen, it is expedient that we should study his structure, and 
 from careful examination, fix the true seat of his powers. For it 
 becomes a leading principle in the matter, that without knowing 
 where what we want lies, we cannot use it to advantage, for we 
 know not how effectively to obtain and apply it ; and that it is 
 extremely important that we should know the seat of that from 
 which we expect to accomplish our object; and which, I may add, 
 if we look for anywhere else but where it is, we shall find our- 
 selves involved in as great a waste of power as would befall the 
 millwright, who should immerse his wheel in " back-water " on the 
 one hand, or elevate it out of the action of the falling stream on 
 the other. But, with respect to the whereabouts of that muscular 
 energy, which is the only moving power applicable to our 
 machinery, we find the most varied and conflicting opinions, in 
 which, the only point of agreement seems to be, that the fore and 
 hind legs share, if not divide, the locomotive power of quadrupedal 
 progression. These differences must be reconciled, and Riding 
 Masters must coincide in their views as to the seat of that energy 
 
FOR PEACE AND WAR. 129 
 
 it is their business to apply, before any uniformity of manage- 
 ment will exist, or a full development of power be attained. 
 
 It is obvious that no one can expect to derive the most advantage 
 from the horse's powers until he has obtained the knowledge of 
 where the source of ability for progression is located. The engine 
 driver can tell whence are derived those powers his skill and educa- 
 tion have taught him to wield at will ; the agents in putting into 
 action for man's exigent service that electric power hitherto the 
 prerogative of Omnipotence, can explain how it is generated and 
 brought into active co-operation with their desires; no trade, 
 occupation, or calling, that its votaries will not understand its 
 principle and action, if we except "Horse Breaking;" and this 
 business, unfortunately, as a general rule, will be found in the 
 hands of those who tax to the uttermost a power concerning 
 which they neither know whence it comes, nor how it operates ; 
 and besides, they, for the most part, indulge in a repulsive species 
 of pretension, which has had the effect of bringing their most 
 important and critical occupation into a disrepute it should not 
 intrinsically merit. 
 
 The fundamental principle of the only practical and en- 
 lightened system is, that the propelling power of the horse I'esides 
 in his hind quarters, and there chiefly in the haunches. 
 
 Perhaps there cannot be found a more ready means of illustrating 
 this proposition than by recurring to the example of the human 
 biped ; the sources of man's propelling powers being situated in 
 his lower limbs, whether he move in his natural and erect position, 
 or whether wc suppose him thrown upon all-fours. In the latter 
 case, the arms being merely employed to sustain the weight of the 
 incumbent figure, which the legs and thighs press forward ; and 
 the heavy structure of man and the horse being so analagous, 
 that if that be true in the case of the assumed incumbent position 
 of the one, it may reasonably be inferred that it is so in the 
 natural position of the other. 
 
 Arguments from analogy, though instructive for illustration, 
 are not sufficiently terse and powerful for the establishment of 
 principles, and therefore attention to an illustration of a stricter 
 
 K 
 
130 ENGLAND S HORSES, 
 
 kind, by which the supposition tliat tlie principle of the fore 
 legs in nature's economy was for the purpose of acting as only 
 props or supports, and not in aiding locomotion by propulsion, 
 rnay be diligently demonstrated, is demanded. 
 
 All progressive motion in organized beings is produced by 
 alternate contraction and extension of their propelling members, 
 whether the instrument of motion be the wing of a bird, the tail 
 or fin of a fish, the annular process of the reptile, or the leg of 
 the biped or quadruped ; its erficiency equally depends upon its 
 being brought into contact with the resisting medium when in a 
 state of contraction, so that the corresponding extension, where it 
 takes place, necessarily forces the body forward in the direction of 
 the least resistance. Thus, the bird and the fish cleave a passage 
 through their media of air and water respectively, and so all 
 creatures which move on the surface of the eal-th bring their 
 propellers, or motive power, to the point of resistance from which 
 they obtain a fulcrum in a contracted state, moving their weight 
 forward with a velocity proportioned to the power exerted in the 
 subsequent extension of the contracted members. 
 
 In the case of the sound horse, the fore leg comes to the 
 ground in an extended state, all its bones, with the exception 
 of those at the pastern joint, abutting on one another in very 
 nearly a straight line, from the point of the shoulder to the 
 extremity of the leg, so that being manifestly incapable of further 
 extension, it must be concluded, on the principles just laid down, 
 that it is incapable of exerting any propelling energy, and con- 
 sequently the only purpose it can serve is that of sustaining the 
 weight of the incumbent fore quarter during the successive 
 advances of the hind legs in their office of propulsion. Add to 
 this important consideration that the heavy structure of the fore 
 legs is joined to the rest of the frame by merely muscular attach- 
 ments, calculated not to communicate impulse, but to break 
 concussion ; and I trust it will appear that we have sufficient 
 grounds for justifying the conclusion that the propelling of the 
 horse does not reside in his fore legs. 
 
 But when we turn to the hind legs, which, instead of like the 
 
FOR PEACE AND WAR. 181 
 
 fore, being united by a flexible and elastic muscular attachment 
 to the rest of the frame, are inserted into the extremity of the 
 spinal column by connecting bones of large dimensions, and 
 eminently calculated, from their direction, to communicate im- 
 pulse to the whole figure, we find all the conditions requisite for 
 the exertion of progressive energy present in a very high degree. 
 The limb is brought to the ground with all its parts in a high 
 state of contraction, the shank boue forming an angle with the 
 upper leg bone, or tibia, at the hock ; the tibia forming an angle 
 with the thigh bone, or femur, at the stifle joint; and the femur 
 forming again another angle with the haunch boue or ischium, 
 which last abuts directly on the lumbar vertebrce, and is the 
 immediate agent in conveying the impulse of the hind legs to 
 that centre of the system. Here, then, we have a series of no less 
 than three angles, not to speak of the elastic apparatus of the 
 pastern, in the successive opening out of which, by contraction of 
 the limb at every stride, all the muscular energy of the hind 
 quarters is called into play, and thus the foot forming the point 
 of resistance, the body of the animal at every stretch of the 
 hind legs is shot forward with a velocity proportioned to the 
 amount of muscular action exerted in that process of extension. 
 Thus it becomes perfectly clear that the whole propelling power 
 of the horse is situated in, and exercised by, the hiud quarters. 
 
132 ENGLAND'S HORSES, 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 Limits of the Horse's Power — Centre of Gravity. 
 
 Having fixed the seat of tliat power it is the business of the 
 riding-master to apply to the most advantage, let us next 
 endeavour to ascertain the limits to its operation. The utmost 
 measure of extension of which the limb is capable, will evidently 
 constitute the limit of this power on the one hand, and the utmost 
 measure of contraction on the other. 
 
 The first hint may be easily fixed, depending, as it does, on 
 the natural conformation of the limb. In most instances the 
 greatest angle which the femur can form with the haunch bone is 
 limited to about 130'^ ; again, the feviur and tibia joined at the 
 stifle joint can rarely form an angle greater than 140° ; and the 
 tibia and shank bone joined at the hock open out to their fullest 
 extent at from 150° to 165°, in proportion to the prominence of 
 the OS calcis. In these maximum amounts of opening, there- 
 fore, we have the limit of the animal's progressive energy on the 
 side of extension ; in the other direction they are not quite so 
 easily ascertained. 
 
 It is obvious that if the joints of the limb were sufficiently 
 flexible to admit of its being brought to the ground in that very 
 high state of contraction in which the parts ai-e almost in contact, 
 we should have the muscular energy of which the parts are 
 capable brought into play in their extension, and consequently 
 would attain the highest velocity that such an apparatus is 
 capable of communicating : but not only are the limbs of the 
 horse incapable of this extreme degree of flexibility, but their 
 
FOR PEACE AND WAR. 133 
 
 measure of contraction is further limited by the disposition of 
 the weight which they have to sustain as well as to propel, and 
 the position of the superincumbent weight in the unburthened 
 animal is the creature's own centre of gravity, being the point at 
 which its entire weight is connected. 
 
 This point in the horse, according to the various proportions of 
 the animal, is found more or less in advance of the flank, and 
 commonly in the middle of the "false" or "back ribs." Now, 
 it is j)lain that, in proportion as the hind leg is brought up in a 
 higher state of contraction, the foot, which forms the point of 
 resistance to the whole propelling apparatus, will be thrown to a 
 corresponding extent further forward, and so, in an extreme case 
 such as we have supposed, will come to the ground considerably 
 in advance of the centre of gravity ; but when this weight is thus 
 disposed behind the point of resistance, the exertion of power is 
 calculated rather to lift than to propel it, and consequently, if 
 there were no other element to be taken into account in our 
 calculations, we should conclude on this branch of the subject 
 that the centre of gravity in the animal as he stands gave the 
 limit of which we are in search ; and when the animal is only 
 beginning to progress, such is, in fact, the proper limit assigned 
 to the advance of the hind foot, but so soon as motion commences, 
 a new force comes into operation in the momentum, compounded 
 of weight and velocity of the moving body, which of itself tends 
 to carry the centre of gravity forward with an independent 
 velocity, proportioned to the original speed by which it is 
 generated. 
 
 In high speed, therefore, the point of support may be taken by 
 the hind foot considerably in adv^ance of where the stationary 
 centre of gravity would be, since the weight is continually borne 
 forward by a force, independent of that about to be exercised by 
 the extending limb, and which suffices to carry it over and past 
 the point of resistance, before each accession of muscular energy 
 from the propelling members comes to bear upon it. 
 
 This force being in proportion to the velocity, it follows that the 
 greater the speed the more contracted will be the condition of 
 
134 ENGLAND S HORSES, 
 
 the hind leg in coming up to the proper point or resistance, and 
 consequently the greater extent of ground covered at each stride ; 
 and as the velocity and stride are thus increased, the body, from 
 the greater obliquity of its supporters, will approach nearer the 
 earth ; hence we see the racer, in full speed, skim along with his 
 belly very contiguous to the ground, bringing up his hind legs at 
 each stride, so as to catch the flying centre of gravity, by an effort 
 which may be said to mark the utmost limit of their contractile 
 exertion. 
 
 In the centre of gravity, therefore, whether stationary as in the 
 horse trying to put himself in motion, or progressive, as when he 
 is propelled both by momentum and by successive accessions of 
 muscular energy from behind, we have the proper limit of con- 
 traction, of which we have been in search. So far, therefore, we 
 conclude, 1st, that the propelling powers reside in the hind legs 
 and haunches : 2nd, that these powers are in proportion to the 
 amount of contraction and extension of which the parts are 
 capable ; and 3rd, that the limits within which they are exercised 
 are the extremity of the outstretched limb, on the one hand, and 
 the point immediately below the centre of gravity — stationary or 
 progressive — on the other. 
 
 If by extravagant action those limits be overpassed in front, the 
 consequence, as I have remarked, will be a certain degree of em- 
 barrassment, the point of resistance being in advance of the weight ; 
 if they be overpassed behind, injury to the hock or haunch will be 
 the result of that excessive extension ; but while straining and 
 embarrassment thus attend on ever}'- excess of action beyond either 
 limit, they will also attend, in a greater or less degree, on every 
 falling short of the same bounds, though they will be chiefly in the 
 case oi deficient contraction. 
 
 Deficient contraction exists whenever the hind foot fails to over- 
 take the advancing centre of gravity ; the weight is then in 
 advance of the point of resistance, and the horse, in urging it 
 forward, labours under the same disadvantage as would be 
 experienced by the man who should attempt to throw the heavy 
 slioulder stone from a point in advance of his foot. Both cases 
 
FOR PEACE AND WAR. 135 
 
 fall under the conditions of the third order of lever where the 
 power is applied between the fulcrum and the weight, and in which 
 it is a well-known law of mechanics, that as the weight is advanced 
 the power is diminished. So with the horse, whose hind foot is 
 his fulcrum, and whose power is concentrated in his haunches, in 
 proportion as his centre of gravity overshoots the point to which he 
 brings up his hind foot at each stride, is the loss of power and 
 corresponding strain upon the embarrassed members. 
 
 A familar example of the same principle is afforded by an ill- 
 trimmed boat, when too much of her cargo is stowed in front, and 
 she becomes, as it is termed, "down by the head." Her sailing 
 powers are thus greatly diminished, and that pressure of the 
 canvas, which, in a properly balanced state of the vessel, would 
 be wholly exerted in carrying her forward, now exercises a con- 
 siderable portion of her force in burying her bows under water ; 
 what the mainsail is to the cutter, the. haunches are to the horse, 
 and it may be justly said, put either " out of trim " and the more 
 sail you carry the less progress you are likely to make. 
 
136 ENGLAND'S HOESES, 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 The Centre of Gravity Displaced. — Disorganization. — The 
 
 Consequence. 
 
 Although the principles arrived at by this train of reasoning are 
 illustrated and realized in the figure of action of the wild horse 
 of the Pampas, or of the desert, as we observe him pictured and 
 described in works of travellers ; and although in the figure and 
 action of other quadrupedsx which have not been subjected to 
 draught or burthen, such as the deer, the hare, the greyhound, 
 we observe they all use the fore legs for the purposes of support 
 only, and all in bringing up their propellers, overtake and support 
 the centre of gravity, attaining so to that beautiful balance of the 
 figure which gives such an air of grace and ease to their move- 
 ments ; yet, we rarely, if ever, find in the domesticated horse a 
 single one of those characteristics of action, which such a distri- 
 bution of his powers ought to produce. On the contrary, we find 
 him in almost every case thrown more or less on his forelegs, not 
 only for support, but for a false means of progression, to make up 
 for the deficient exercise of his true propellers ; and as the appli- 
 cation of any instrument in the economy of nature to purposes 
 for which it was not designed, it is necessarily punished with 
 disease. We rarely, if ever, find him free from blemish, while in 
 a majority of cases, defects, amounting almost to unsoundness, are 
 repulsively visible, crippling his movements, shortening the period 
 of his usefulness, and detracting from the pleasure and advantage 
 of his owner. 
 
FOR PEACE AND WAR. 137 
 
 It may at first sight appear strange, that these imperfections in 
 carriage, with their attendant train of malformations and blem- 
 ishes, should exist in the young animal as he is usually put into 
 the hands of the trainer ; but nothing is more certain than that 
 peculiarities of gait and carriage are transmitted from one genera- 
 tion to another. The observant enquirer will be at a loss to 
 account for the original introduction of those peculiarities, they 
 being all owing to the mistaken manner in which the animal in 
 his natural state has been subjected to the artificial duties of 
 draught or burthen. 
 
 The wild horse, unaccustomed to either, moves, as do other 
 quadrupeds, in their native state, in perfect balance ; because at 
 each stride he brings up his propellers to the point directly 
 beneath his centre of gravity ; but the moment he receives a rider 
 or burthen, that centre is shifted forward ; for, the seat which 
 convenience most readily resorts to for the saddle back-band, or 
 hooser, just behind the withers, and on which we impose all the 
 burthens we lay upon the animal, is so situated that a heavy 
 body placed there does not press over the point where the weight 
 of the unenc%imbered animal is concentrated, but several inches in 
 advance of it. The new centre of gravity of the whole mass is 
 thus shifted forward to an intermediate point, more or less in ad- 
 vance of that to which the animal in his wild state had been 
 accustomed, and beyond which natural requirement had not called 
 upon him to bring up his motive powers. The consequence is, 
 that his hind legs now act at a disadvantage, and the animal, to 
 make up for their diminished deficiency, has recourse to his fore 
 legs as instruments not only of support, but of progression. 
 
 This is the first fatal step ; it leads directly to all the evils that 
 usually beset this noble creature through man's careless ignorance. 
 The fore legs having now assumed the office of auxiliary pro- 
 pellers, must, as we have already seen, come to the ground in a 
 state of contraction, and as their structure precludes contraction 
 at any joint except that of the knee, they now come to the 
 ground with a bend at that joint, and are thus at once converted 
 from the straight and firm supporters that nature made them, and 
 
138 England's horses, 
 
 which they were, or ought to have been, before the artificial 
 change of the centre of gravity, into a pair of bent and tottering 
 props, ready at the least trip or interruption to collapse beneath 
 their burthen. Thus the direct and immediate consequence of 
 the first false step is, that the horse becomes a stumbler, and is 
 continually subject to the danger of breaking his own knees and 
 his rider's neck. But further, the bending of the knee, however 
 slight, shortens, more or less, the height of the support afforded 
 to the fore quarter of the animal by the fore-leg ; and it is a well- 
 known fact, that if a weight be carried between two points, one of 
 which is lower than the other, as if a hand-barrow be borne 
 between a long and short man, the burthen falls more heavily 
 upon the latter. But without that bending of the knee the 
 animal is unable to compensate for the loss of power which he 
 now experiences in his true propellers ; the next step towards 
 destruction which he therefore takes, is to make up for this loss of 
 natural height in his anterior supporters, made necessary by that 
 compensation for the loss of power in his hind legs to which I 
 have just adverted, by straightening out his pasterns, and stand- 
 ing as it were on his toes. This restores the level, and relieves the 
 fore legs from that increased burthen to which the bending of the 
 knee had subjected them ; but it doubles the risk of stumbling, 
 and brings on directly every one of that multiplicity of diseases 
 to which the fore-foot and leg are so notoriously subject. 
 
 For the pastern now, instead of discharging its natural office of 
 an oblique spring interposed between the hoof and the rest of the 
 limb for the prevention of excessive concussion, becomes a direct 
 and rigid prolongation of the shank, and so communicates to the 
 whole limb, and to that delicate plate of muscles which forms its 
 only attachment to the rest of the frame, the shock of every 
 stroke of the hoof against the ground. If we begin at the hoof, 
 and trace the direct consequences upwards, we shall find first that 
 the hoof, no longer resting flat on the ground, but bearing chiefly 
 on the toe, becomes liable to contraction, both directly from the 
 resistance of the iron shoe, and indirectly (which is the most 
 frequent symptom) from internal inflammation resulting from the 
 
FOR PEACE AND WAR. 139 
 
 same cause ; that the small bones of the foot, squeezed together 
 by the weight resting directly on the extremity of the "coffin 
 bone," are all in their turn liable to inflammation at their points 
 of juncture, the navicular bone especially, which is so often the 
 seat of the worst cases of lameness, that the deposit of bone 
 being stimulated by the pressure and concussion to which all 
 parts are thus exposed, the joints become liable to callosities and 
 bony enlargements, which too frequently involve the whole foot 
 in some of the worst species of unsoundness, in shape of ossified 
 cartilages and ringbone. 
 
 Following the mischief up the leg, we next find the " back 
 sinew," which Nature chiefly designed for the purpose of lifting 
 the foot and contracting the pastern, deprived of all opportunity 
 of exercising its proper functions, and so exposed to these enlarge- 
 ments consequent on that state of relaxation, so often mistaken 
 for sprain in the back sinew. 
 
 Ascending higher, we find increased tendency to bony deposits, 
 consequent on accumulated concussion of the parts, promoting the 
 formation of large splints, which, though callous in themselves, 
 almost invariably produces lameness when they are growing 
 through the sensitive tissue, by irritating and pressing against 
 the sheaths of the tendons which play over and beside them ; and 
 finally carrying our investigation to the upper extremity of the 
 limb (with the cursory remark that this tendency to increased 
 bony deposits, caused by accumulated concussion consequent upon 
 the straightening out of the pastern joint, will appear in the bones 
 of the arm and shoulder, as well as those of the foot and shank), 
 we find the plate of muscles forming the attachment by which the 
 blade bone is affixed to the trunk, suffering as well as the rest of 
 the limb from the same evils ; the shock of every stroke of the 
 hoof against the ground, no longer broken by the elastic play of 
 the pastern joint, being communicated directly to these fibres, 
 which, not being designed in the structural economy of the animal 
 for resisting such concussion, are often affected by inflammation 
 and even rupture, producing the most serious cases of shoulder 
 lameness. 
 
14-0 England's horses. 
 
 But the evil does not rest here. This bending of the knee and 
 straightening of the pastern necessarily throws the fore feet hack- 
 wards ; these now standing in the way of the hind feet, the latter, 
 in sympathetic accommodation, also fall back from their true posi- 
 tion, thus aggravating the evil already existing by throwing a still 
 farther burden upon the fore feet, which, again yielding to the 
 increased bending of the knees and greater erectness of the pas- 
 terns, called for by the increasing necessity for finding some pro- 
 gressive power independent of the true propellers, creep back a 
 little further, and push the hind feet more and more from their 
 natural position, till the latter, no longer resting flat on the 
 ground under an oblique pastern, but propped on the toes with 
 the pastern extending similarly to the fore feet, become liable to 
 similar evils, only that those bony deposits which are the invari- 
 able accompaniments of concussion, taking the form of splints on 
 the shank bone of the fore leg, assume the more formidable cha- 
 racter of " spavin " in the joint of the hock. 
 
 Such are the pains and penalties by which Nature admonishes 
 and afflicts for the abuse of any of her provisions — so " wise in 
 their ends and economic in their means" — and as her arrange- 
 ments have been systematically disregarded (time out of mind) 
 by the manner in which we compel our beasts of burthen to con- 
 form to our impositions, it is not surprising that, with the addi- 
 tion of other concurrent abuses, they should be productive of evil 
 consequences to the horse genei'ally, and that he should have 
 entailed upon him in the domestic state an inclination to a faulty 
 carriage, and predisposition to, if not actual, disease, far too gene- 
 rally in very foalhood. 
 
FOR PEACE AND WAR. 141 
 
 CHAPTER Xni. 
 
 The Centre of Gravity Restored — Disorganization Prevented. 
 
 It is palpable that all those evils would have been avoided if, in 
 fii'st subjugating the horse to his uses, man had either taken 
 means to adapt the burthen to the figure of the animal, so as not 
 to disturb the natural centre of gravity, in which case the horse 
 would have preserved his balance without any alteration in extent 
 of his action ; or else before imposing the burthen, had trained the 
 animal to a foreign and extended action, such as would compensate 
 in the harmony of motion to the unnatural distribution of the 
 weight to be carried; in which latter case the natural balance 
 would be exchanged for an artificial one, but the animal machine 
 would by factitious aid still move in equilibrium, and so escape the 
 consequence of being thrown on other resourses for motion than on 
 those which nature has provided. 
 
 It is equally obvious, now, that in seeking to restore the animal 
 to a proper use of his powers, and to preserve him from innumer- 
 able ills that attend on the perversion of those purposes of nature 
 •which he has been made the victim and example of; it is open to the 
 breaker either to exert his skill to bring the animal back to the 
 natural balance of the wild horse, and then to impose his 
 burthen in such a way as not to disturb that balance, or else to 
 extend the natural action sufficiently to prepare him for the 
 reception of a burthen imposed in the ordinary way. 
 
 That the former one would be the course more strictly congenial 
 to the natural economy, I do not doubt, and that in not adopt- 
 ing it we expose ourselves to some bad consequences, I am 
 
142 ENGLAND'S HORSES, 
 
 Avcll persuaded ; still the difficulty existing from structural in- 
 convenience in the application of dranght and burthen in any 
 but the ordinary manner, and the immemorial adhesion of man to 
 the long established mode of harnessing and saddling, render it 
 almost impossible that it should get practically that preference to 
 which in principle it is clearly entitled. 
 
 The only course, then, open to the breaker is the latter of the 
 two above mentioned, it being efficacious not only for the full 
 development of the powers of the animal, but also for complete 
 prevention and even cure of those ailments which I have already 
 enumerated. 
 
 The earlier after three years old that the horse for ordinary 
 purposes of utility, fashion, or war, can be put into the hands of 
 the riding master the better. 
 
 The cervical and dorsal vertebrae, which must in most cases 
 receive a new direction, are after the age of three years compara- 
 tively stiff and settled in that false position to which I have 
 adverted as being more or less entailed on the whole equine race 
 in these countries. This hereditary assimilation to a deformity 
 may be exemplified by an anaUxgous misfortune to be found in the 
 stooped shoulders, narrow chests, and shambling action of the 
 majority of the population of crowded manufacturing towns : and 
 as the drill sergeant, in forming recruits drawn from such districts 
 for the reception of the knapsack, begins by forcing back the 
 shoulders and elevating the head, so must the riding master, who 
 would qualify the young horse for the reception of his rider 
 or other burthen commence his operations by a corresponding 
 process of elevating this extremity of the spine ; not by the tem- 
 porary and ruinous expedient of straightening out the lipabs that 
 support it, and thereby bringing on all the complicated ills which 
 we have glanced at, but by a permanent alteration in the carriage 
 of the animal's neck and shoulders, not to be effected without a 
 corresponding improvement in the whole frame. 
 
 This alteration is effected by mechanical restraint, adapted to 
 the varying figures submitted to it. The " ewe-neck," where, by 
 elevating the head we depress the cervical vertebras still further, 
 
FOR PEACE AND WAR. 14S 
 
 will obviously require a different arrangement of the reins from 
 that resorted to with the " rainbow," i.e., arching-neck. 
 
 It would be beyond the purpose of this little manual to give any 
 minute, and, possibly, too technical a description for general read- 
 ing, of the apparatus to be employed ; suffice it to say, that a 
 yoke or furniture having the property of adjustment suitable to 
 every case can be conveniently fitted on any horse, and will have 
 the efliect, in a few lessons, more or less, according to age and 
 formation of the animal, of forcing to raise the spine at the 
 shoulder, being the process, in his case, corresponding to the 
 forcing back of the spine at the same point in the human 
 figure. 
 
 True it is, neither in the case of the biped, nor of the quadru- 
 ped, can this alteration be effected without some degree of incon- 
 venience, and even temporary pain ; but it would be as unreason- 
 able to compromise the efficiency of our troops out of a mistaken 
 sensibility for the sufferings of the recruit, as it is for some 
 enthusiastic and mawkish people to sacrifice all hopes of rendering 
 the horse permanently master of his educated powers, from their 
 reluctance to subject him to temporary discipline. 
 
 Supposing the alteration, however, to be effected, the very first 
 consequence of it will bring the riding-master into collision with 
 another prevalent prejudice. It will readily be seen that in pro- 
 portion as the shoulder is elevated, the weight is more thrown 
 back upon the hind quarters, while the fore legs, being propor- 
 tionately lifted from the ground, no longer have the same oppor- 
 tunity of catching or pushing at the surface that was afforded to 
 them while the shoulder remained in its depressed condition. The 
 consequence is, that the animal at once, and as a matter of neces- 
 sity, begins to work his haunches with an energy proportioned to 
 the increased demand upon them. But the very operation of 
 putting the horse to the vigorous employment of his true instru- 
 ments of progression, is unfortunately met at the outset by a pre- 
 vailing idea, that putting the horse on his haunches, or " uniting 
 him" as it is technically termed, is attended with bad conse- 
 quences to the hock. To this it may be a sufficient answer to say 
 
144 England's horses, 
 
 simply, that nature, having designed the haunches as the true 
 seat of the animal's progressive power, would never allow their 
 legitimate use to be attended with bad consequences of any kind, 
 either to themselves or to the neighbouring parts of the limbs ; for 
 disease is not normal, but acquired, being only the result of dis- 
 organization, and the invariable attendant of abuse, but never of 
 the due use of any of nature's provisions; but however strongly 
 the case may appear to have been made for the application of that 
 argument, it may be well to meet the objection upon diiferent 
 and independent grounds: — and first, the true cause of hock ail- 
 ments is not the excess, but the defect of action in the haunches, 
 for then the hocks have to do the work the haunches have left un- 
 done, and the haunches have their work undone for this simple 
 reason, that if they opened out and closed vip to their full extent 
 at every stride, the hind foot must needs come forward to a place 
 where the fore foot stands in its way and impedes it ; and the fore 
 foot stands there, because the bent knee and straightened pastern 
 have thrown it back from its proper place under the point of the 
 shoulder ; and the knee has been bent, and the pastern has been 
 straightened, because the shoulder has, from time out of mind, 
 been depressed by the imposition of burthens in advance of the 
 point to which the animal has been taught to bring up his pro- 
 pellers ; so that by elevating the fore hand, getting the fore feet 
 out of the way, and putting the horse on his haunches, we not 
 only do not throw any additional strain upon the hocks, but really 
 relieve them of an undue task, which we thus confer and confine 
 to the proper instruments provided by nature for its due per- 
 formance. 
 
 And although apart from the subject with which I am here 
 occupied, I ask pardon for digressing so far as to direct the mind 
 of the reader to the adoption of this theory in confutation of the 
 shallow and unreasoning objections so pathetically urged against 
 the use of the bearing rein, which may be regarded in its 
 judicious application as one of the most humane and excellent 
 instruments known for the increased accession of the harness 
 
FOR PEACE AND WAR. 145 
 
 horse's powers in full vigour to the fulfilment of his tasks, and 
 the preservation of his soundness. 
 
 To return to our subject, this operation of "uniting" the 
 horse, which, under that name, is so much reprobated, is not only 
 uot condemned, but highly approved when it shows itself under 
 any other name, and in consequences afFe'cting another part of the 
 body. 
 
 Everyone knows how much " a good mouth," as it is called, is 
 justly prized amongst all lovers of the horse. " Does he ride to 
 a good mouth ? " is more frequently than any other the question 
 of a high- class dealer in horses. In Ireland it is said, as one of 
 the most attractive commendations that can be bestowed, that 
 such a horse is " well snaffled." The terms are synonymous, and 
 mean that he is light on hand, perfect in his paces, and so forth ; 
 and yet, if the matter be looked into, it will be found that the 
 quality so much commended does not reside in the mouth at all, 
 for, so far as mere organization is concerned, the mouths of all 
 horses are as nearly as possible alike, and if the jaws of the 
 hardest-mouthed "borer" in the world were submitted to the 
 anatomist, side by side with those of the best broken and ligl)test- 
 mouthed horse, it would be impossible for him to tell which was 
 which, unless, indeed, from the greater tenderness of the "hard 
 mouthed" one, caused by the merciless pulling which is ignorantly 
 supposed callousness to the bit too frequently encourages. Fur this 
 idea of some mouths being " calloused " is a mere vulgar prejudice, 
 caused from the fiict of hard pulling resulting from causes quite 
 independent of the mouth. The mouth of every horse is 
 exquisitely sensitive ; the only callousness in the business is in 
 the feelings of the rider, or rather, let me say, in his judgment, 
 for if that were as sensitive to the facts before his eyes as the 
 " bars " of the horse's mouth are to the bit with which he 
 lacerates them, he would perceive that his horse leans on his hand 
 for support, not because he, poor beast, does not feel the incon- 
 venience, but because he cannot help it ! 
 
 It is support the " hard mouthed " horse looks for, in nine 
 cases out of ten, and he is driven to seek that support where he 
 
146 England's horses, 
 
 can find it ; and the reason why he needs it is simply this, that 
 his forehand has fallen below its proper limit in the scale of a 
 just balance, and so has to support an undue share both of his own 
 weight and that of his rider. The consequence is, as has been 
 already shown, that his fore legs fall back, and in their turn force 
 back the propellers ; the haunch no longer works through the 
 whole of its proper space of action, for it cannot close completely 
 up without bringing the propellers fully forward, and they, as we 
 have seen, cannot get fully forward on account of the impediment 
 offered by the displacement of the fore feet, which, in their turn, 
 are equally unable to recover their proper position, while the 
 shoulder continues depressed; the drooping head must be sup- 
 ported, no matter at what cost of pain to the "bars" of the 
 poor animal's mouth. But raise the shoulder, get the fore feet 
 out of the way, set the haunch to work, in other words, " unite" 
 your horse and bring up his propellers, and you at once find his 
 balance restored, his action extended, his speed and strength some- 
 times nearly doubled, and his head, which used to hang with so 
 irksome a weight upon the arm of his rider, erect, free, light 
 upon the hand, and perfectly sensitive to every admonition of 
 the bit. 
 
 Such, in at least nine cases out of ten, is the true explanation 
 and cure for the so-called "hard-mouth," as well as of the 
 "uneven mouth," so termed when the horse pulls by one side of 
 his mouth and moves obliquely. In the remaining cases, the 
 cause is usually to be found in some malformation or acquired 
 distortion of the vertebrae of the neck, causing the head to incline 
 to a particular side, and so offering an obstinate resistance to the 
 rein, which pulls in an opposite direction. Putting the horse on 
 his haunches will not, it is true, cure this defect; but if the 
 animal be not in balance, it will facilitate the cure, by leaving the 
 head and neck free to the unimpeded operation of such other 
 remedies as the skill of the breaker may enable him to adapt to 
 the varying circumstances of each case. 
 
 To elevate the anterior extremity of the spine, then, with a 
 view to restoring the animal to a proper state of balance, is the 
 
FOR PEACE AND WAR. 147 
 
 object of the first lesson given in this system of training ; and, 
 as observed, that object is attainable by different means, suitable 
 to the varieties of form, habit, and temper exhibited by the horses 
 placed in the breaker's hands. 
 
 If I be right in these views, founded as they are on the first 
 principles of mechanical philosophy, it would follow that for 
 contracted hoofs, ring-bone, navicular disease, splents, spavins, 
 •curbs, shoulder lameness, and all the rest of the organic diseases 
 which affect horses, as well as in those supposed cases of lameness 
 which are only the results from irregular and unbalanced action, 
 the enlightened riding master should be applied to and not the 
 veterinary surgeon ; for the former can remove the original cause 
 of the evil, the latter only prescribe for the effects from it. 
 
 ON THE SADDLE. 
 
 To attain to such a seat as will secure equilibrium and thus 
 afford personal ease and comfort and facility for command over the 
 horse, ought to be the first object of the tyro ; and the formation 
 of it will be rendered easier by attention to some very simple 
 •elementary considerations. 
 
 It is one of the rudimeutal laws of gravitation, that if any body, 
 such as the person of a rider on horse-back, overhang the base on 
 which it is supported, it will have a tendency to fall over, which 
 •can only be counteracted by external force, or by the exertion of 
 muscular tenacity. 
 
 Now, the base on which the person of the horseman is supported, 
 is, alternately, the saddle and the stirrups; it follows, therefore, 
 that the rider will have a tendency to fall off, whenever his person 
 is not directly over its point of support, on the saddle or in the 
 stirrups, as the case may be; and this tendency he can only 
 counteract by adequate muscular exertion. 
 
 But as all his muscular force (independent of the awkwardness 
 and fatigue attendant on such continued exertion) ought to be 
 employed in the control of his horse, or in such other exigencies 
 as may arise, it becomes desirable, in the first place, that he shall 
 
148 ENGLAND'S HORSES, 
 
 attain to such a seat as will keep his centre of gravity directly 
 over the base on which it is for the given moment of time sup- 
 ported. But, as I have mentioned, it is so supported from two 
 points alternately — the saddle and stirrups. Consequently, if 
 these two points be not in the same vertical line, the rider, to 
 avoid falling off, will be obliged to shift his position at each 
 motion of the horse, so as to bring his centre of gravity alternately 
 over each ; and in fact this is the method of riding which we 
 every day witness in the field, the park, and streets, where the 
 tuition of the efl&cient riding master has never been resorted to. 
 In trotting, the uncultivated horseman is specially observable ; 
 where we see three out of four of our ordinary horsemen "jogging 
 along," in a series of these awkward movements, rendered necessary 
 by their having their feet far in advance of their seat on the 
 saddle, so that at each vertical motion of the horse (which the good 
 rider avoids by rising from the saddle and pressing the stirrups) 
 they are obliged to shift the body to a corresponding extent ; thus 
 not only altering their own centre of gravity, at the cost of much 
 tiresome and unseemly exertion, but, what is worse, breaking up 
 and confusing the action of the best paced horse by continually 
 shifting the weight he has to carry : a process which, I need 
 hardly say, alters and shifts the centre of gravity of the whole 
 mass, and consequently leaves the best trained animal uncertain 
 how far to bring up his propellers, on which depends unity and 
 harmony of action. With such a seat, the strongest man will 
 be comparatively powerless in the saddle, and the most dis- 
 tinguished figure look mean and constrained. The repose so 
 essential to a dignified carriage cannot consist with these hurried, 
 anxious, and iiTegular movements ; the steadiness of hand requi- 
 site for the support and control of the animal, and, without which, 
 both horse and rider are in constant danger of coming to the ground, 
 is wholly unattainable, and the sense of insecurity, combined with 
 conscious awkwardness, renders the ride itself a species of irksome 
 probation, rather than a delightful and exhilarating exercise. 
 
 But when the stin-up is brought perpendicularly under the 
 saddle, then both points of support are on a line with the centre 
 
FOR PEACE AND WAR. 149 
 
 of gravity at the same time, and, consequently, one uniform posi- 
 tion keeps the body of the rider over both, as each in succession 
 becomes the point of support. 
 
 This seat once attained by practice, the rider will himself be in 
 balance, no matter where the saddle may be placed, for the seat 
 will always be under the shoulder, and the stirrups under the 
 seat. 
 
 But the tyro must not expect that the ordinary announcements 
 of "riding taught in six lessons" will ever accomplish anything 
 for him beyond the creation of a conviction that at the expiration 
 of his half-dozen experiences he has just learned enough to con- 
 vince that he knows nothing but of the most rudimental character. 
 Six months' careful attendance with such a man as "Fred Allen," 
 would, no doubt, suffice to turn out a " finished horseman." 
 
 To complete the equilibrium of horse and rider, it will be 
 necessary to regulate the position of the saddle, so that when the 
 rider occupies his seat, the additional weight may either coincide 
 with the centre of gravity of the horse (which would be perfection 
 of balance), or, where that is possible, that it may, at all events, 
 lie within the limits of such action as the animal has been trained 
 to. 
 
 Then the complete balance is established ; the horse moves with 
 the same freedom as in his native pastures, the only difference 
 being that his weight has been increased by the imposition of a 
 load, which his habitual action is competent to sustain and propel, 
 and which he finds precisely where custom has brought his limbs 
 to expect it; while the load itself — neither lying a dull weight, 
 like an inanimate burthen, nor jerking backward and forward, like 
 an unskilful horseman — accommodates itself by an easy and spon- 
 taneous movement to every motion of the horse, aff'ording at the 
 same time support, guidance, and encouragement ; in a word, 
 endowing the energies of the brute with a portion, as it were, of 
 the rider's reason. 
 
 If the seat so gained were found inferior to other more easily 
 attained postures, in any of the requisites for perfect horseman- 
 ship ; if in that position, for instance, the hand of the rider were 
 
150 England's horses, 
 
 less able to compete with the pull of the reins ; or if in the leap 
 his person were more exposed to the tilt of the hind quarters, and 
 so his seat less secure, then it might be doubted whether it were 
 worth while, for the preservation of a perfect balance, to subject 
 the rider to these inconveniences. But as it always happens where 
 a true principle is the foundation of our reasoning, whatever is 
 pointed out by that principle will be found consistent with every- 
 thing else that properly connects itself with the subject ; so here 
 we find the seat indicated by the necessity of balance to be that 
 in which all the powers of man and horse act together with the 
 greatest amount of ease and efficiency in the performance of every- 
 thing that appertains to perfect horsemanship. 
 
 At first sight, it might appear as if those postures which pupils 
 in riding schools, or elsewhere, are prone to assume, from the 
 analogy that naturally suggests itself between sitting upon an 
 ordinary seat and upon a saddle, and in which the legs are 
 stretched forward in an extended state, with the stirrups pushed 
 up towards the horse's shoulders, would afford the means of offer- 
 ing the most resistance to the pull of the reins, however awkward 
 and insecure it might be in other respects ; for here the resistance 
 from the stirrups is nearly on a line with the direction of the pull, 
 while in the perpendicular posture it is nearly at right angles to it. 
 But when we consider that action and reaction are equal and 
 opposite, we shall easily perceive that any oblique action on the 
 stirrups, communicating its reaction through the outstretched 
 limbs, has a direct tendency to tilt the figure back upon the 
 saddle, in a direction which neither gravitation nor muscular 
 action can oppose ; so that before the rider can avail himself of 
 the resistance of his foot in such a position, he may be said to 
 have already lost his seat. 
 
 But the perpendicular position of the vertical reaction of the 
 stiri-up, supposing it to be communicated in full force to the per- 
 son, is directly met by the downward pressure of the ridej's 
 weight, and this alone is sufficient to reinstate the figure in its 
 proper position. But that upward tilt, even before it comes into 
 opposition to the gravity of the body, is broken and carried off by 
 
FOR PEACE AND WAR. 151 
 
 the spring of the knee, at which there must necessarily be a slight 
 angle, to bring the foot back to its position under the seat ; so 
 that in the perpendicular position the whole weight and muscular 
 pressure of the rider descend upon the seat and stirrups without 
 any counteracting influence whatever. The more the rider in such 
 a position presses the stirrups, the lighter will be the grasp which 
 his thighs will take of the saddle, and the more immovable the 
 resistance which his trunk will offer to the pull of the reins. 
 
 On the contrary, in the oblique position, every pressure of the 
 foot will re-act against the trunk, because it will neither be broken 
 by spring at the knee (the leg in that position being necessarily 
 extended), nor opposed by the vertical force of gravitation, and 
 will consequently detach not only the seat, but the thighs them- 
 selves from the saddle. 
 
 To pull such a rider out of the saddle the run-away horse will 
 only have to overcome a resistance equal to the difference between 
 the rider's weight and the pressure on the stirrups ; so that the 
 more he presses on the stirrups, the lighter he will be to lift. 
 
 To pull the balanced rider from his seat, not only must his 
 entire muscular power be overcome, but his entire iveight must he 
 lifted vertically out of the saddle ! and that, by a force acting at 
 right angles to his figure, which is practically impossible. 
 
 So also the perpendicular, or military seat, is found the most 
 convenient for avoiding those shocks, which are inseparable from 
 high action. It is impossible to bring the figure into this position 
 without making such an arrangement of the limbs, from the hip 
 downwards, as brings the flat of the thigh in immediate contact 
 with the saddle, with the back of the limb turned outward ; in 
 which position it is evident that the immediate line of contact at 
 the seat must be limited to a very small portion of the person, 
 and that directly under the weight. A vertical shock striking the 
 rider there, may lift him vertically, but his position will be im- 
 mediately restored by the counteracting influence of gravity ; and 
 if the shocks be of a peculiarly violent nature,. it may be avoided 
 altogether by detaching that portion of the seat from the saddle, 
 which the command of the stirrup enables at all times the rider 
 
152 ENGLAND'S HORSES, 
 
 in our day to effect, without in the least degree interfering with 
 the main hne of attachment to the saddle, extending down the 
 entire length of the limb. By the simple movement above de- 
 scribed, the balanced horseman sails erect over the highest leaps 
 in an easy curve, corresponding with that described by his horse's 
 centre of gravity, to which his knees and thighs attach him, but 
 wholly unaffected by the violent motion of the hind quarters, out 
 of the influence of which he has thus raised the only portion of 
 his person liable to such disturbance. 
 
 On the contrary, the oblique seat exposes the rider at every 
 leap, and indeed at every pace, to a tilt from behind, which he can 
 only avoid by the awkward expedient of throwiug his trunk and 
 shoulders so far back as to shift his seat forward out of the way of 
 the visitation ; a sudden grip with the calves of his legs being the 
 only substitute left for the proper attachment of the thighs, which 
 is necessarily broken up and neutralized by the movement. 
 
 It is true this seat of balance is not to be obtained but by pains 
 and practice. The sitting posture^ to which we are habituated, 
 inclines the limbs to a wholly different arrangement from that to 
 which we must conform them in the saddle ; the hips and 
 haunches, not so much used in other exercises, must be handy, 
 flexible, and obedient ; the feet must be used in a posture directl}'- 
 opposite to that taught by the dancing-master. Presence of mind, 
 so little called for in ordinary walks of life (but which is in itself 
 a necessary attendant on the position of equilibrium), must be 
 cultivated and established ; a daring confidence in the power of 
 balance to carry the rider through anything, and over anything, 
 that his horse can pass, must be so implanted in the mind, and 
 become the fundamental principle of the pupil, to such an extent, 
 that there will be no room for hesitation or doubt, should a 
 moment of difficulty arise. In a word, the rider, as well as the 
 horse, must go through his proper course of training; or that of 
 the animal, in the first instance, will have been of no avail. 
 
 Is it not strange that with so many difficulties on every hand, 
 with so much to be acquired, and so much to be forgotten, horse- 
 manship, of all the other exercises to make a fully accomplished 
 
FOR PEACE AND WAR. 153 
 
 person, is the only one for which there is a gi-eat laxity and care- 
 lessness in seeking the best master 1 
 
 We should justly call the young person a simpleton, who would 
 stand up in a crowded ball-room without having received a lesson 
 in dancing ; who would attempt a duet, while ignorant of the 
 gamut ; or who would fight a duel with rapiers, never having so 
 much as handled a foil. But that bug-bear to advancement, 
 custom, has reconciled us, amongst other monstrosities, to the 
 sight of hundreds of aspirants to horsemanship, who do not 
 hesitate to vault into the saddle without a single preliminary 
 lesson, there coolly, and as a matter of course, to perpetuate such 
 blunders, and exhibit such awkwardness, as, if they occurred in a 
 quadrille or other dance, would cover the transgressor with 
 confusion. 
 
 But to those who, regarding horsemanship as an accomplish- 
 ment of the most important consideration in society, and for 
 personal comfort and safety, set themselves to learn it, like any 
 other branch of a complete education, the toil and pains of learn- 
 ing are amply repaid by very great pleasure, opportunities, and 
 advantages. 
 
 If the educated horseman be fortunate enough to possess a well- 
 trained horse, he keeps him so ; if he mount an animal whose 
 balance is defective, he soon discovers the defect, and removes it ; 
 every ride to such a horseman, or horsewoman, is an exercise of 
 mind as well as body, and redounds to their profit, not only in 
 point of recreation and health, but also in a positive addition to 
 tlie value of the animal beneath him. 
 
 In the Hunt or Steeple-chase, while others, mounted, perhaps, 
 on higher-bred and better horses, may be seen leaping short, or 
 'Tunning baulks," at every fence, their horses being in that 
 state of extension which renders them incapable of collecting 
 themselves for a well-measured or fearless spring ; the educated 
 rider will be observed, even on an inferior animal, timing his 
 stride, and uniting him in such a way, as to bring him up to every 
 fence with his propellers directly under his weight, and ready at 
 the shortest notice to throw their whole energy into the leap, 
 
154 England's horses, 
 
 which accordingly is rarely unsuccessful ; for it is a very wretched 
 quadruped, indeed, that does not possess force enough, if properly 
 husbanded and directed, to carry eleven or twelve stone over any 
 ordinary hunting fence, though such fence may not unfrequently 
 be seen to stop a clever hunter, when brought to the leap in an 
 animated state, and his propellers insufficiently advanced. Many 
 sad accidents I have seen to man and horse from this cause. I 
 once saw in one day's steeple-chasing, the death of five beautiful 
 animals from jumping short. All came to the point for taking off 
 in an extended and uncollected state (for a horse may be extended 
 and held well in balance at the same time) ; so that the spring 
 being, necessarily, more from the shoulders than from the haunches, 
 and consequently insufficient to propel the weight through a wide 
 enough space, caused them to fail in clearing the fence they were 
 endeavovxring to negotiate. 
 
 The united state is that in which only the horse can be said to 
 be fully amenable to the control of the reins. The run-away 
 horse, as if conscious of the fact, invariably gets up his back, and 
 throws himself on his shoulders when breaking away, and in such 
 position it requires no inconsiderable skill nor slight exertion of 
 power to pull the animal up ; for the vertebrse of the neck are, in 
 such cases, stretched out very nearly in the same line with the 
 pull of the reins, and the fore hand cannot be got up, nor the pace 
 moderated, till the reins can be got to act on these vertebrre like abow- 
 string, which in that position is sometimes very difficult to effect. 
 But the fleetest and most spirited horse, if in balance, will be free 
 from this vice ; for the pull of a child's hand on the reins in such a 
 state of carriage tells more on the figure of the animal than that 
 of the strongest man against the outstretched neck of the " borer," 
 so that to the other advantages I have enumerated as flowing 
 from the system of tuition to horse and rider that I advocate, I 
 may justly add that of greatly increased safety to the weak or 
 timid, as well as increased ease, comfort, and satisfaction to all. 
 After my observations on the improved carriage of the horse, I 
 proceed to give my views as to what, it strikes me, are the 
 advantages derivable to the rider from instruction based on the 
 
FOK PEACE AND WAR. 155 
 
 same principles ; for the same system which expands and disem- 
 barrasses the chest of the horse, by bringing his centre of gravity 
 over its proper point of support, applies with equal force to the 
 mounted equestrian of either sex. 
 
 To attain the "seat of balance," the rider, whether male or 
 female, must throw back the upper part of the person, so as to 
 bring the weight directly over the saddle, this arrangement of the 
 figure is necessarily accompanied by a hollowing of the spine at 
 the waist, the effect of which, coupled with the retraction of the 
 head and shoulders, is to expand the chest to its full limits. 
 And as the blood is vitalized by the influence of atmospheric air in 
 the lungs, and the amount of energy required at each inspiration 
 depends upon the extent of the lungs engaged in this process, it 
 follows that the extension of the chest, especially when we are 
 borne rapidly through fresh and pure air, is a certain means of 
 giving increased vigour to all the vital functions ; and I may add, 
 that wherever healthy action is so induced, exhilaration of mind 
 is its inseparable attendant. 
 
 This is a fact well worth the serious attention of parents and 
 those having charge of youth . 
 
 It is well known, and every head of a family must have observed, 
 that young persons of both sexes, but especially lads who are 
 passing out of the age of boyhood, are frequently affected with 
 dulness of spirits, in some instances amounting to dangerous 
 melancholy. It is not for me to speculate upon the causes that 
 too frequently convert the laughing boy into a morose youth, 
 further than to say, that about this period of life there appears to 
 be an increased demand for vital energy, while as yet the puerile 
 lungs are not of sufficient capacity to admit, in this normal 
 condition, a competent supply of vitalising air : — under such 
 circumstances out- door exercise, of an exhilarating kind, is the 
 natural and ready remedy. Walking may contribute towards the 
 purpose to a certain extent ; but after a moderate amount of exercise 
 in that way, the increased action of the lower limbs exhausts all 
 the acquired energy from the freer use of the lungs, and the body is 
 not left any overplus of animation to impart to the mind. But in 
 
156 England's horses. 
 
 riding, where the limbs are comparatively at rest, this exhausting 
 demand does not exist, and the mind at once partakes of increased 
 animation of the body. " Taking fresh air " in an open carriage 
 might at first sight appear equally beneficial ; but the sitting 
 posture as usually adopted is that of the contracted chest. To the 
 extent only of breathing purer air is it an advantage, but, where the 
 patient who would breathe purer air, and more of it, can bear the 
 slight additional exertion of riding on horse-back, the saddle is, 
 unqaestionably and emphatically, the seat of health and happiness : 
 and, to conclude these observations with an application of the 
 subject with which they have been chiefly occupied, I will add, 
 that the fatigues or dangers of the saddle will be more or less, 
 very great or utterly insignificant, just in proportion as the horse 
 and rider are in defective or in proper balance. 
 
 Such are the principles which every competent and reasoning 
 judge of the subject will, I think subscribe to : and thus it is that 
 I advocate the handling and riding of England's Horses for 
 Peace and War. 
 
 ^^* Lessons for Ladies tvill appear in a future edition that hof 
 been called for. 
 
157 
 
 UNDER ROYAL PATRONAGE. 
 
 CAPTAIN DE VERE HUNT'S HORSE AGENCY. 
 
 ESTABLISHED NEARLY 20 YEARS. 
 
 Under the patronage of nearly all the Eoyal Courts and a majority of the 
 noble families and aristocracy of Europe. 
 
 Vide Testimonials below. 
 
 VERE D. DE VERE HUNT, 
 
 PROPRIETOR OF 
 
 THE OLD ESTABLISHED AND HIGHLY PATRONIZED HORSE 
 
 AGENCY. 
 
 (Verbum sat Sajnentijl 
 
 HORSES OF EVERY DENOMINATION FOR HOME USE AND 
 
 EXPORTATION. 
 
 THOROUGHBRED STALLIONS :— Selected carefully for transmission of 
 
 desirable qualities to progeny. 
 BROOD MARES:— With length, room, blood, quality, bone, and action. 
 RACE HORSES: — In training, promising, or of public repute. 
 STEEPLE CHASERS :— " Dark," or in training, with established character. 
 MATCHED PAIRS :— Of eveiy colour and kind, from the lady's blood Gallo- 
 ways to 17 hands high state horses. 
 LADIES' HORSES:— My speciality!!! 
 
 HUNTERS : — Up to all weights, and suitable to aU purses ! 
 OFFICERS' CHARGERS :— Suitable for, or steady with troops. 
 HEAVY-WEIGHT COBS :— With appearance and manners. 
 LIGHT-WEIGHT COBS :— With character, action, and manners. 
 CHILDREN'S PONIES :— Broken and steady, or otherwise to order. 
 MATCH TROTTERS :— Foreign and Enghsh. 
 BROUGHAM HORSES :— From 100 to 400 guineas. 
 
 At this exceptionally scarce and dear season in the home market this well- 
 known Agency will be found of incalculable benefit to purchasers of horses 
 for any purpose of saddle, harness, the turf, or stud, from the widely known 
 exclusive advantages and opportunities at disposal of the proprietor. 
 VERE D. DE VERE HUNT, 
 
 Author of " The Horse and his Master," [Longmans], " England's Horses for 
 Peace and War," &c., &c. [Bemrose], " Shamrock," and "North Tipperary," 
 in Bell's Life, &c., &c. 
 
 Founder and proprietor of The Eoyal British and Foreign Horse Registry. 
 The recognised and valued medium of the Courts and Aristocracy of Europe 
 and the East. 
 
 N.B. — Testimonials from royalty, nobility, gentry, military and naval 
 officers, clergymen, and professionals of the very highest order will be for- 
 warded free to any address. Personal references to clients at home and 
 abroad. 
 
 Address by letter for particulars or appointment, Captain De Verb Hunt, 
 Boscobel House, Regent's Park, London, N.W. Established nearly 20 years. 
 
 [See over for I'estimonials, <ic. 
 
158 
 
 Some of many letters in testimony of the Proprietor's efficiency 
 
 and trustworthiness as an Agent for Sale and Purchase of 
 
 Horses. 
 
 From LoBD Cowley, British Ambassador at Paris. 
 
 Chantilly, Oise, 
 
 August, 1861. 
 To Captain db Verb Hunt, 
 
 Eoyal British and Foreign Horse Registry, London. 
 Sir, — The certificates of the horses selected by you for me are quite satis- 
 factory, except that the bay is not quite five years old, which to my mind, 
 diminishes its value. I want you now to purchase for me a pony, 13 — 2 high, 
 bay if possible, and quiet in harness ; he must be a fine and free goer, and 
 high-class, like my other horses. Answer me to this place, if you please. I 
 testify to your zeal in my commission. 
 
 I am, Sir, 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 COWLEY. 
 
 From The Count Fleury, Consul- General of France, Queen's Gardens, 
 Baysivater. 
 Sib, — I have wi-itten to inform my brother, General Fleury, of the charger 
 you have selected for The Emperor, and you will now receive your further 
 orders from Head Quarters. 
 Thanking you for your satisfactory exertions in the matter, 
 I am, with consideration, &c., 
 
 JULES FLEURY, Consul-General. 
 To Capt. Hunt. 
 
 From, the same. 
 Sir, — I have inspected the pair of driving ponies you have selected for Her 
 Imperial Majesty the Empress. They are as beautiful animals and as well 
 matched as I have seen, but alas ! too small. I am more sorry than you can 
 be for this, as I know well the difficulty of getting such pictured beauties. 
 Persevere, and name your own terms if successful. 
 
 I have the honour, with consideration, &c. , 
 
 JULES FLEURY. 
 To Capt. Hunt. 
 
 From The Hon. Colonel Maude, First Equerry to Her Majesty Queen 
 Victoria. 
 
 Eoyal Stables, Buckingham Palace, 
 June, 1871. 
 Sib, — I tried the phaeton horses yon brought me yesterday, and if you call 
 here you will be paid for them. 
 
 I shall be pleased to see any horses you select for the Royal Stud. I want 
 hacks particularly just now, such as I described to you. 
 
 Your obedient servant. 
 _^_ C. MAUDE. 
 
 From The Count de Cygaly, " Master of the Horse " to the King of Italy. 
 
 Turin, 
 
 April 22nd, 1861. 
 Sib, — By His Majesty's order, I immediately answer your letter about the 
 bay and chestnut (thorough-breds) you have selected for His Majesty. 
 
 I must still make a few observations respecting these horses. It is neces- 
 sary, I shall repeat, that they must not exceed 16 hands high, must be per- 
 fectly sound, without any defect in the legs, especially that the tendons have 
 
159 
 
 not been injured in any way, as they are destined for parade horses for the 
 King. Their age must not exceed seven years. 
 
 If in these respects they please your judgment, you are requested to despatch 
 them immediately, by the usual route, to the Eoyal Stables here. 
 
 I beg you to advance the Groom £50 as the necessary expenses of the 
 journey. The £600 for the horses and the £50 will be paid immediately to 
 your order by Mr. Heath, His Majesty's Consul in London. 
 I remain. Sir, yours, &c., 
 
 V. DE CYGALY, Master of the Horse. 
 
 From The Eight Hon. Lobd Giffoed, Twenty Years a Master of Fox-Hounds, 
 
 Ampney Park, Cirencester, 
 
 September 5th, 1861, 
 Captain Hunt,— I beg to enclose you a cheque for the little Arab ; he is 
 worth fifty of the grey I bought myself, and carries Lady Gifford most beauti- 
 fully. I rode him cub-hunting with Mr. Greaves, and he is as active as a cat, 
 and can put a leg anywhere. 
 
 After a long experience in horse matters, I must say, I have never known 
 an instance where strict adherence to my directions, and skill and judgment 
 were more satisfactorily displayed than in yoiir recent selection for me. And 
 I am much pleased with your energy, capacity, and liberality in the business 
 between us; and shall never fail to give you a "good tui-n," when opportunity 
 offers, amongst my friends. 
 
 Yours, 
 
 GIFFORD. 
 
 Frojn The Eight Hon. Lord Llanovee. 
 
 Monday Morning. 
 Deah Sir, — I rode the hack you selected for me on Saturday, and like him 
 sufficiently well to negotiate further as to price, which you must abate a 
 little if you mean to deal with me. 
 
 I have sent you a friend for carriage horses— take care of him, he is no 
 judge himself. 
 
 Yours obediently, 
 
 LLANOVEE. 
 
 From The Eight Hon. Lord Palmerston. 
 
 Cambridge House, Piccadilly, 
 
 Thursday Morning, 
 Captain de Vere Hunt, — I called upon you yesterday about "Baldwin." 
 You have been prompt and expeditious in the matter, and I am sorry I cannot 
 accept the offer made by Mr. Holmes. If he will allow you to advance, see 
 me on the subject. 
 
 Yours, &c., 
 
 PALMEESTON. 
 
 From Mb. Longfield. 
 
 Castle Mary, 
 
 Co. Cork. 
 To Captain de Vere Hunt, 
 
 _ My Dear Sir,— I have received your letter offering me £10,000 for " Caro- 
 line," " Blarney," and " Union Jack." His Lordship's offer, through you, is 
 liberal ; but the fact is, I breed and race for my own amusement, and being 
 easy on the score of money, I beg, with thanks, to decline. 
 Hoping to see you at Newmarket, 
 
 I remain, yonrs truly, 
 
 W. LONGFIELD. 
 
160 
 
 Fro77i the Hon. Colonel Cholmondley, Abbott's Mois, Northmich, Gheshire^ 
 
 Abbott's Moss. 
 Dear Sir, — I have great pleasure in stating, that in all my transactions 
 with you (and I have entrusted valuable horses with you to dispose of for me, 
 as well as having bought and exchanged through your agency), I have always 
 found you most competent, anxious to please by any means in your power, 
 and furnishing good horses ; and always ready to assist upon equitable terms 
 an exchange, if such was desirable from any cause, such as a horse not suit- 
 ing in the most trivial way, and I have known you most zealous for others iu 
 the exercise of your " calling." 
 
 Yom-s truly, 
 
 THOMAS CHOLMONDLEY. 
 
 From Reab-Admiral Russell Elliott, Appleby Castle Stud Farm. 
 
 Dear Sir, — I am sorry to hear you contemplate some change in your 
 present mode of carrying on business as a Commission Agent for the Sale 
 (IF Horses. 
 
 For, as an extensive breeder of genei-al horses, I have found your skill, your 
 judgment, and your zeal very useful in disposal of my stock, after they had been 
 broken and put in condition ; and the general public well understand the value 
 of an agency through which the usual trouble and risk is completely and 
 satisfactorily dispensed with. While more horsey people, I know, regarded 
 the practical trials you can make, the inquiries your experience and facilities 
 can institute, and the species of shield at your disposal, as desirable adjuncts 
 not attainable except through your agency. 
 
 I am, your obedient servant, 
 
 RUSSELL ELLIOTT, Rear- Admiral . 
 
 From the Rev Canon Prothero, Chaplain to the Queen. 
 Whippingham, 
 
 East Cowes, 1869. 
 My dear SiRj — I am much obliged to you for your active and satisfactory 
 exertions on my behalf ; you have supplied me with a pair of horses, and did 
 it with less trouble and expense than I could myself accomplish. I am well 
 pleased with your kind and active efforts. 
 
 Very truly youra, 
 
 GEORGE PROTHERO. 
 
 From W. H, Bainbrigg, Woodseat, Ashbourne, Derby. 
 
 My dear Sir, — My dealings with you have been of a most satisfactory 
 character. I have sold valuable horses through your efficient and highly de- 
 sirable agency. 
 
 I have recently received a letter from Mr. Sitwell, the Master of the Ludlow 
 Hounds, in which he writes respecting the horse you selected from my stud 
 for him ; " I like him very much indeed, and consider him very clever at any 
 kind of fence." 
 
 This is another tribute to your sound judgment of a hunter, as I tried hard, 
 I confess, to sell you any of my others in preference. 
 
 I have found you strictly straightforward and above hoard in all I have had 
 to do with you, and cautious as a Red Lidian. 
 
 Yours faithfully, 
 
 W. H. BAINBRIGG. 
 
161 
 
 From the Owner of " The Lamb," the dual Winner of the Liveiycol 
 Steeplechases. 
 
 BV SPECIAL APPOINTMENT. 
 
 Veterinary/ Surgeon to His Excellency the Lord Lieutenant. 
 
 16, Westland Eow, 
 
 Dublin. 
 My deae Captain, — In reply to your note, I beg to state, tliat during tlie 
 com-se of a lengthened and extensive practice, which has thro-^Ti me amo^jgat 
 many of the gi-eatest racing and hunting celebrities, I have met with nohodii 
 whose minute and practical ji;dgment in equine alfairs, and in the choice of 
 valuable horses for any purpose, can surpass your own ; and if I knew how to 
 write my opinion of you on the subject in more forcible terms, I would feel 
 myself justified in doing so. 
 
 I am, my dear Sir, 
 
 Yours very respectfully, 
 
 JOSEPH DOYLE, M.K.C.V.S. 
 
 Veterinary Establishment, 
 
 Waterford. 
 To Captain de Verb Hunt, 
 
 My Dear Sib, — In reply to your note of the 3rd instant, I am very happy 
 to add my affirmation to press and public award. I beg to state I can cheer- 
 fully bear testimony as to the very ample qualifications possessed by you in 
 choice of horses. For I have had opportunities of testing your superior judg- 
 ment in such matters, and in choice of valuable horses for varied purposes. 
 I am quite sure my countrymen across the Channel will duly appreciate the 
 value of such an agency as yours, in such able hands. 
 • I am, my dear Sir, 
 
 * Yours faithfully, 
 
 E. H. DYEE, M.E.C.V.S.L. 
 
 From Captain Kerb, V.C. 
 
 Sattara, Bombay Presidency, India, 
 Octoher Uth, 1861. 
 Sir, — I want to employ you in a critical commission, which, from your 
 writings, and the private recommendations I hold concerning you, I confess 
 to placing in your hands with complete confidence. 
 
 I want a thorough-bred race-horse, a good one ; very handsome, very sound, 
 and vary fast. He must have wonderful legs and feet to stand the wear and 
 tear of our adamantine course and training grounds. 
 
 W H. KEEE, 
 Maharratta Irregular Cavalry. 
 
 Albion Tower, Upper Norwood. 
 My dear Captain Hunt,— As I leave for Bombay early in November, I 
 wish you to procure for me the two other horses I require for racing in India. 
 I need not again give you directions, as " Field Marshal " is the very 
 thing ; keep him in your eye, and if you do as well for me in other selections 
 I will be well contented. I never saw so perfect a thorough-bred horse, of the 
 size I want (15 hands), so adapted to race and carry the extra weight as 
 this " Field Marshal " you bought from Mr. Briscoe for me.* 
 
 Yours faithfully, 
 
 J. TANNEE. 
 
 * Suhsequent to th-s order, Mr. Tannee j;?/rc7iascfZ "1sIaj>ts.id," inTurlxy, and 
 decided on limiting his outlay to him and "Field Marshal." 
 
 M 
 
162 
 
 From Captain McCbaithe, the Celebrated " Gentleman Rider." 
 
 Loughloher, Caliir, Ireland. 
 My Deae Hunt, — Perhaps your plan of publishing the opinions of public 
 men amongst your testimonials may have a good effect, as coming from those 
 admittedly well versed in horses and their belongings. It may have a good 
 effect on those, if any there be, who do not know what a practical fellow you 
 are in all matters relating to Stud and Stable. If any man knoius better 
 than you about a horse, he must have discovered something relating to him 
 not heard of him before now. 
 
 With an earnest wish for a thorough appreciation of your utility in the bu- 
 siness you have adopted, 
 
 I remain, my dear Veee, 
 
 Ever your sincere old friend, 
 
 THOMAS McCEAITHE. 
 
 From M. Rorekts Vanson. 
 
 Phaffendorf, near Ehrembresten, 
 Prussia. 
 Dear Sik,— This is written at your request, to state whether I am satisfied 
 at your treatment to me when I sent my money to you to lay out to the best 
 of your judgment for horses for me, such as I tell in my letter I want for me. 
 
 The horses you sent here to me from London are very good horses, and 
 bought worth their money. If I were to buy them once more, I should not 
 hesitate to pay the double of the money they costed me. Now, you satisfy 
 me so much in all respects that I tell all my friends bow Captain Hunt will do 
 with them for English horses. The only thing I regret is that I did not take 
 your advice at the time I bought two other horses in London ; because I soon 
 found the chesnut one is worth nothing, just as you said, while you were 
 quite right of other one, the grey one, which is a most good horse, like those 
 others you send me. 
 
 Yours, dear Sir, with consideration, 
 
 M. ROBERTS VANSON. 
 To Captain Hunt, London. 
 
 From The Comte de M.vknix, " Master of the Horse " to the King of Belgium. 
 
 Braxelles, 1864. 
 This is to cei-tify I have employed Captain Hunt as his Majesty's agent for 
 horse-buying in England, to purchase stallions and other horses for the Royal 
 studs, and he has given complete satisfaction. 
 
 (Signed). CHAS. DECONE, 
 
 For The COMTE DE MARNIX 
 
 From Mr. Chaeles Decone, Assista)it to The Comte de Marnix, Master of the 
 Horse to the Belgium Court. 
 
 14, Rue Montoyer, Quartier Leopold, 
 
 BruxeUes, Sept. 4th, 1861. 
 Dear Capt. Hunt. — I have seen the Count respecting the stallion you have 
 for £400, but we will not have any more stallions from you, or any one else, 
 this year. But hope next year that we shall do good business together again, 
 as the Count has a very high opinion of you. He looks forward, with confi- 
 dence in your judgment, to the receijjt of the ten harness horses you say you 
 will send here in November. 
 
 Yours, Captain, very respectfully, 
 To Captain Hunt, CHARLES DECONE. 
 
 Warrington Stables, Maida Vale, London. 
 
 From the Master of the Tipperary Fox Hounds. 
 
 Wilford, Callan, Ireland. 
 My Deab Hunt. — From my knowledge of you since the time when, prior to 
 the sale of your fine estate in this country, you hunted regularly, and in the 
 van guard of the " Tips," I can have no objection, but, upon the contrary, 
 
163 
 
 great pleasure to give my opinion upon a subject that your clever and highly 
 appreciative pen has long since madeamatter generally known to the sporting 
 and horse-keeping xjuhlic, namely, that as a practical horse manager, a first- 
 rate judge, and a clever salesman, not easily " done ! " you have certainly no 
 superior that I have ever met. 
 
 I remain, my dear Hunt, 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 JOHN GOING, 
 Master Tipperary Fox Rounds. 
 
 From the Most Noble The Maequis of Waterfoed, Master of Fox Hounds, 
 
 Curraglmiore. 
 Dear Hunt, — Dick Butler has asked me to write you a line as to my opinion 
 of your competency for the arduous profession the loss of your estate has 
 compelled you to adopt. From my long acquaintance with you, both when I 
 hunted your county and since, I can say that you are thoroughly practical in 
 horse matters, and that I have great faith in your birth and antecedents 
 operating to preserve you in the only true road to success — perfect straight- 
 forwardness with the English public. I heartily wish you success. I like 
 yom- 2)lucJc in not being beaten by hard luck. 
 
 Very faithfully yours, 
 
 WATERFORD. 
 
 From the Master of the Curraghmore Fox-Iiounds. 
 Tinvane-Carrick-on-Suir, 
 
 2«^ March, 1861. 
 Dear Sir, — I have great pleasure in stating that I employed you to purchase 
 me a stallion, for stud purposes, unseen by me, and upon your wi-itteu descrip- 
 tion. I was very much pleased with him when he arrived from England, and 
 your description was perfectly accurate, though cautious. You might with 
 justice have recommended more highly than you did. Since this transaction 
 I have been benefitted by your agency (you having sold " Field Marshal " 
 forme at a " big figure"), and I have entrusted you with a commission for 
 another stud horse, as I am well pleased with your agency, both selling and 
 buying for me, and have implicit reliance in your good faith and unquestion- 
 ably sound judgment. 
 
 I may add to this testimonial that I have known you for a long time as a 
 highly respectable gentleman, representing one of the most honoured and 
 aristocratic families in your native county, where you inherited a fine old 
 Beat and large property. 
 
 Believe me to be, dear Sir, faithfully yours, 
 
 HENRY W. BRISCOE, 
 Master Curraghmore Fox-Hounds . 
 
 From Sir Richard Sutton, Bart., Master of Fox-Hounds. 
 Dear Sir, — I know you very well. I have enjoyed pleasant sport in your 
 company in Ireland. I have great pleasure in bearing testimony to you as a 
 gentleman, a good sportsman, and an unusually fine horseman, and judge of a 
 horse. 
 
 Truly yours, 
 
 RICHARD SUTTON. 
 
 From Sir Tatton Sykes, Bart. 
 
 Dear Sir, — You were introduced to me by Honourable Col. Cholmondley 
 (my son-in-law), who said you were a good judge of horses. From your 
 remarks and answers to my questions when inspecting my stud, I think so too. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 TATTON SYKES. 
 
164 
 
 From the Master of Ludlow Fox-Hounds. 
 
 Ferny Hall, 
 
 Ouibiiry, Salop. 
 
 Deab Sib, — I purcliaserl a horse, selected by you for me, from Mr. Bainbrigf?, 
 
 Woodseat, Ashbourne, Derby. I never saw the horse till he was my property 
 
 aijd sent home. I have now hunted him for some time, and am much pleased 
 
 with him. 
 
 Yours truly. 
 To Capt. Hunt. W. H. SITWELL, 
 
 Master Ludlow Fox-Hounds. 
 
 From the Master of East Kent Fox-Hounds. 
 Dear Sie, — I like the brown horse you so strongly recommended me, he 
 is going on very well. I wish you would get me another, but I am in no hui-ry. 
 I consider you a judge of a hunter. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 apt. Hunt. T. BROCKMAN. 
 
 From Major-General Shirley. 
 
 Brookside Lodge, near Rugby, 
 Jan. loth, 1862. 
 Dear Sm,— In answer to your letter, I have much pleasure in stating that 
 I have a good opinion of your judgment in horses, and can certify to your 
 having supplied me with a wonderful animal to carry weight and go a great 
 pace with hounds ; and I have seen always "judges' horses " in your stables. 
 aU evincing soimd judgment in selection. I always think it requires a man 
 thoroughly experienced in riding to hounds (like yourself) to be a reliable 
 judge of a hunter. 
 
 I may add that I have invariably found you to be straightforward in all the 
 many transactions that have taken place between us. 
 
 I am, yours very faithfullv, 
 Captain Hunt. ARTHUJR SHIRLEY. 
 
 From Captain the Honourable A. D. S. Denison, Boyal Navy. 
 
 Yorkshire Club, 1869. 
 Dear Captain Hunt, — I have got a ship and must be off to China on short 
 notice. We have not much prospect of meeting again for years. I have 
 given instruction for the sale by auction of my stud here. Perhaps you will 
 have some friends you would wish those extraordinary good horses you have 
 supplied me with to go into the hands of. 
 
 Believe me to be, with best wishes. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 A. D. S. DENISON. 
 
 From Sir G. G. Montgomery, Bart., M.P., &c., &c. 
 
 Stobo Castle, Stobo, N.B. 
 
 October 23rd, 1871. 
 Sip.,— I enclose an advertisement I have just put in the Scotch papers in 
 reference to the pair of horses I bought through your agency last July, and 
 which I wish now to dispose of only because mine is a heavy carriage and the 
 roads are hilly. I can warrant them to a purchaser in all particidars. 
 I am, yours truly, 
 
 G. GRAHAM MONTGOMERY. 
 
 Fro)n Colonel Colville, Governor of County Middlesex Prison. 
 
 Cold Bath Fields, W.C. 
 
 Dec. 19th, 1873. 
 Having purchased a horse for my brougham, selected by Captain Hunt, I 
 certify that I am well satisfied with it; and that I believe him to be a trast- 
 worthy agent and a good judge of horses. 
 
 THOS. H. COLVILLE. 
 
165 
 
 From, Captain W. Belpield, Fall Mall Club. 
 
 Malmamy, Frenchay, Gloucestershire. 
 August 3rd, 1873. 
 Dear Captain Hunt,— As regards the testimonial you ask me for, I can 
 only say that the trouble you took to assist me in the matter of horses, and 
 the patience, energy, and knowledge you displayed in procuring the same was 
 to me highly satisfactory and commendable, as I have no doubt it will prove 
 to others who will test your efficiency and judge for themselves by experience 
 as I have done. 
 
 Believe me, faithfully yours, 
 
 W. BELFIELD. 
 
 From Sir Jacob Heney Preston, Bart., Beeston Hall, near Norwich. 
 
 Beeston Hall, 
 
 Dec. nth, 1873. 
 Deae Captain Hunt. — I have much pleasure in stating that the carriage 
 horses, hunter, and pony that you bought for me five or six years ago are still 
 in my possession, and doing their work to my entire satisfaction. 
 
 Believe me, yours truly, 
 
 J. H. PEESTON. 
 
 From Captain Honourable A. D. T. Denison, R.N., Curzon Street, Mayfair. 
 
 J say, out of the -s 
 jr had a bad one. 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 Dear Captain Hunt, — I can truly say, out of the very many horses you 
 have purchased me since 1867, 1 never had a bad one. 
 
 A. D. T. DENISON. 
 
 From the Rev. Canon Geo. Prothero, Bector of Whippingham, Isle of 
 Wight, and Chaplain to the Queen. 
 
 Hora Bridge, Plymouth. 
 
 Sept. 23rd, 1873. 
 Dear Sir, — I enclose you the letters sent me, and am glad to find that those 
 who appear to know you best appreciate you. I am sm-e no one wishes you 
 success more fervently than I do. 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 GEO, PROTHERO. 
 
 From Colonel Thos. H. Colville, Middlesex House of Correction. 
 
 Cold Bath Fields, 
 
 Feb. 24th, 1874. 
 Deab Sir, — I am glad to hear you are going on prosperously and giving 
 satisfaction to customers. My horse continues to give satisfaction, and does 
 credit to yoiu- choice. 
 
 Yom-s faithfully. 
 
 Captain DE Vere Hunt, THOS. H. COLVILLE. 
 
 Boscobel House, 
 
 Regent's Park, N.W. 
 
166 
 
 From J. S. Gobdon, Esq., from Ca'pe of Good Hope. 
 
 Woodside, Teddington. 
 
 Feb. 21st, 1874. 
 
 Dear Captain Hunt,— It gives me the greatest pleasure in stating my entire 
 approval of the manner in which you have so satisfactorily negotiated the 
 purchase of the stallion Langham for me for exijortation ; and that I shall be 
 only too glad to recommend you to any friends of mine requiring the services 
 of such an invaluable agency as yours. 
 
 I cannot refrain from adding that to the most keen and practical judgment 
 in your operations on my behalf you have evinced a resolution in and capacity 
 for hard work that fairly astounded me, and I must say yovi are the most 
 indefatigable and hard-working man I ever had dealings with, and that I con- 
 sider your charges reasonable, honest, and hardly earned. 
 
 I remain, yours obliged and sincerely. 
 Captain DE Verb Hunt, J. S. GOEDON. 
 
 Boscobel House, 
 
 Regent's Park, N.W. 
 
167 
 
 [PERSONAL.] 
 
 Lismore School, 
 
 March 7th, 1855. 
 My dear Verb,— You ask me for a letter in the shape of a testimonial, 
 which you wish to be provided with for the furtherance of ulterior objects. 
 
 I feel much pleasiire in stating that, in addition to a most excellent natural 
 disposition, your literary attainments are sound and satisfactory ; and that 
 for a period of five years that you were resident pupil here, your conduct was 
 unexceptionable. 
 
 I have had large pecuniary transactions with you since your arrival at 
 man's estate, and am bound to say your treatment of me was highly satisfac- 
 tory, and most honoirrable to yourself. 
 
 I remain, most affectionately. 
 
 Your sincere friend, 
 Vebe Hunt, Esq., W. E. STOKES. 
 
 Clonhugh Park, 
 
 Co. Westmeath. 
 
 Howth Castle, 
 
 June, 1856. 
 My dear Sir,— I have no objection to say (at your request) that the letters 
 you have brought me, prior to obtaining a Commission in Lord St. Lawi-ence's 
 Regt., are highly creditable to you, and from gentlemen of highest position in 
 this county, including Mr. Hamilton, our M.P. Also that Mr. Quinn, of 
 Loughloher Castle, and the Marquis of Waterford have specially spoken to me 
 very favourably about you. 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 HOWTH, 
 To Verb D. Hunt, Esq., - Lord-Lieut. Co. Dublin. 
 
 Richmond Barracks, Dublin. 
 
 Shaubally Castle, 
 
 August 21sf, 1855. 
 My dear Sir, — I regret very miich your application for a Company in the 
 North Tipperary Regt. has come too late, all Captains' Commissions having 
 been filled up. I admit your claims, and am fully aware of your high respect- 
 ability, and the loyal service always done by your ancestors in my memory. 
 I have only to express my regret that I have not what you require at my dis- 
 posal, and, doubtless, you would decline subaltern rank. 
 
 Yours faithfully, 
 
 LISMORE, 
 Verb D. Hunt, Esq., Lord Lieutenant Co. Tipperary. 
 
 Clonhugh Park, Mulliugar. 
 
 Lisfinney Castle, 
 
 Tallow, Co. Waterford. 
 My dear Hunt, — I have known you from boyhood, when you were an in- 
 mate of Lismore School with my son Edward. Then I foi-med of you an 
 exalted position, which, in your maturer years, I have liad no reason to 
 change. I can also say you were born to a fine portion and high position in 
 your native county, of which untoward circumstances deprived you at the 
 same crisis that ruined many of the first gentlemen of oiu' land. 
 I remain, my dear Hunt, 
 
 Very sincerely j-ours, 
 Vere Hunt, Esq. EDWD. CROKER, 
 
 Clonhugh Park, Brevet-Major. 
 
 Mullingar. 
 
 Cashel. 
 My dear Sir,— I beg to say I have known your family for upwards of 
 seventy years, and have sat upon the Grand Jury of this County for upwards 
 of thirty years with your grandfather, your father, and other members of 
 
168 
 
 your family— all known and respected for their superior culture and abilities. 
 Your grandfather I knew very well ; he was one of the best High Sheriffs 
 we ever had, and one of the most talented gentlemen at a critical period. 
 
 I have known yourself from the time you and my son Charles were little 
 boys at school, and then, and now, we all thought, and think, very highly of 
 you, both as an honourable man, a sincere friend, and a perfect gentleman. 
 
 You lost your fine property through the mis-managemenfof others ; and it 
 being sold at a depressed period for such property, it did not realize half its 
 value; and you, like many another high fellow, became the victim of 
 circumstances. 
 
 I remain, very faithfully yours, 
 
 ii. B. H. LOWE, 
 Deputy -Lieutenant Co. Tijpperary. 
 
 Extract from a Letter in " Times " Newspaper, Feb. 6th, 1856. 
 " To THE Editor of the ' Times.' 
 
 '_' Sir, — I saw Captain Hunt's name mentioned in your paper as having 
 ' given assistance to the survivors from the wreck of the Josephine Willis, 
 emigrant ship.' I am sure if you had seen the gallantry and heroic conduct 
 displayed by that noble young fellow in the midst of death, and when it was 
 suj)posed the vessel he was on board of was sinking, you would have extolled 
 his self-sacrificing bravery in glowing terms. When comiDarative order was 
 restored, I saw him administering comfort and consolation to the wretched 
 survivors with a voice and manner kind and gentle as that of some tender 
 woman. 
 
 " Who Captain Hunt is, I know not ; but for his humanity and gallantry 
 upon that dreadful night, may God Almighty bless his noble heart, is the 
 prayer of 
 
 "A GEATEFUL SURVIVOR." 
 
 [LITERARY.] 
 
 OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 
 
 " The Horse and his Master," by V. D. Hunt, Esq. [Longman],— is unescep- 
 tionably the most sensible little book we have met with, as to the diffusion of 
 sound principles of Breeding, Training, and Stable Management. * * * * 
 There is sound knowledge pervading the whole work, and every equestrian 
 ought at once to procm-e and study it.— John Bull, May 21st, 1859. 
 
 " The Horse and his Master," with Hints on Breeding, Breaking, Stable 
 Management, Training, Elementary Horsemanship, and Riding to Hounds, 
 &c., by Vere D. Hunt, Esq. [Longman, p. 151.]— Another voh;me of " The 
 Horse — horsey." It is a sensibly written treatise upon the nature of the horse, 
 and the best means of breeding and managing it. Altogether a practical and 
 very useful little manual. — The Critic, May 5th, 1859_ 
 
 " The Horse and his Master," [Longman.] — Here is another contribution to 
 what may be called the equine literature of the day. It is a treatise on 
 Breeding, Breaking, and Stable Management of the Horse, by Vere Dawson 
 Hunt, Esq. The subject of breeding has been treated at great length and by 
 the ablest -naiters (the author for one) in otir columns ; and there is little 
 doubt that when the winter months shall put a stop to many of those sports, 
 the details of which fill up the major portion of our columns, the subject will 
 again be revived. In the mean time we have great pleasure in recommend- 
 ing this practical and very ably wiitten little volume to all lovers of the 
 animal ; convinced as we are that it will foster and promote the feeling which 
 is so rapidly gaining ground, that we have been for many years losing sight 
 of some of the first principles of breeding — principles which now, more than 
 ever, demand the earnest attention of all Englishmen. — Bell's Life in 
 London, May 8th,. 1859. 
 
 "The Horse and his Master," [Longman.] — The object of this very useful 
 little manual is to afford hints on the Breeding, Breaking, and Management 
 of the Horse, Training, Elementary Horsemanship, and Riding to Etoiinds, 
 &c., aU of which appear to be well worthy of consideration amongst those 
 
169 
 
 who give both time and attention to such pursuits. These hints are written 
 in an easy, graceful, and comprehensive style, and certainly supply many 
 facts which prove that much more may be done in the management of horses 
 than has been generally attempted. — Bells Messenger, May 14th, 1859. 
 
 " The Horse and his Master," [Longman,] by Vebe D. Hunt, Esq. — We 
 have read this very useful and instructive volume with much pleasure, and 
 feel happy in recommending it as a very ably written and instructive work, 
 for which the author deserves the support and thanks of not only those who 
 keep and breed horses, but of the public at large. The Fox-Hunter will 
 applaud Hints on Eiding to Hounds, at the end of the volume. — Freeman's 
 Journal, May 9th, 1859. 
 
 "The Horse and his Master," [London: Longmans.] — In a time when devo- 
 tion to literature has become so general an object of the million, and when 
 great competition for public notice debars access to the desired goal, save 
 through the way of high excellence and distinguished merit, it is a very pleas- 
 ing duty to extol any work whose individual worth attracts encomium and 
 defies cavil. The volume under notice is written in a style that will be easily 
 understood by the stableman, and highly appreciated by the man of letters — 
 vigorous, minute, redundant, and engrossing. The most casual observer will 
 detect the strong confidence of the author, notwithstanding the unobtrusive 
 manner in which his opinions are advanced ; and the perspicuity and logical 
 precision with which his views are supported, give ample testimony of great 
 practical experience of the subjects he handles, and affords gratifying evidence 
 of a cultivated talent of no ordinary capacity. This manual is very useful, 
 and deserving general jrablic attention, at a time when a weU-mounted 
 Cavahy and efiSciently-horsed Artillery should be a paramount consideration 
 with every Englishman.— TAe World, May 28th, 1859. 
 
 [LETTERS IN TESTIMONY OF ABILITY AND SUCCESSPUL 
 AUTHORSHIP.] 
 
 From Me. Blackwood, Proprietor of " Blackwood's Magazine," Edinburgh. 
 
 Blackwood, Edinburgh, 
 
 Jan., 1860. 
 Deab Sir, — Your paper on " Our National Sports " is amusing and instruc- 
 tive, and written in a style much more literary and pleasing than generally 
 characterises sporting authorship. Indeed, so much pleased was I with its 
 intrinsic merit, though not at all suited in subject to our Magazine, that I 
 had very nearly decided upon its publication. A friend, however, overi-uled 
 my views, and we have both decided on returning the MS., at the same time 
 expressing our complete aj^proval of it as a work of very decided merit, and 
 only returned as being unsuited in subject. 
 
 Youi-s truly, 
 To Capt. Hunt, JOHN BLACKWOOD. 
 
 Dublin. 
 
 From Lord William Lennox, Editor of " The Review." 
 
 4, Porchester Terrace, Hyde Park, 
 
 London, A2}ril 4th, 1859. 
 
 Dear Sm, — I have much pleasure in stating that, since I have been Editor 
 of " The Review," your contributions have been exceedingly valuable. Unlike 
 other authors, you furnish "copj" in good time, and I have never had 
 to call upon you to add or erase a single line. 
 
 Wishing you success in your literary career, and an open field for display of 
 talents which must, if opportunity offers, raise their possessor to a high posi- 
 tion amongst the sons of genius, 
 
 I remain, my dear Sir, 
 
 Very faithfully yours, 
 Capt. De Veee Hunt. WILLIAM P. LENNOX. 
 
170 
 
 From Professob Cameron, Editor of " The Agricultural Beview." 
 
 Office of Agricultural Eeview and Country G-entleman's Paper, 
 7, Great Brunswick Street, Dublin, 
 
 Jubj, 1859. 
 I have great gratification in saying that Capt. De Vere Hunt, as Sporting 
 Contributor and Eeporter to this paper, has given very general satisfaction ; 
 and, I am bound to add,, his productions in our columns and those of contem- 
 poraries have induced a large number of our subscribers. 
 
 C. A. CAMERON. 
 Capt. De Verb Hunt. 
 
 From Editor of Bell's Life," A.D. 1860. 
 
 Bell's Life Office, London, 
 
 March, 1860. 
 Dear Sir, — Yoiir request for a letter in the shape of a testimonial is unusual ; 
 all your contributions to the " Life " having been prominently inserted ^nd 
 paid for at our highest scale of remuneration, is surely the best test of your 
 efficiency as a Sporting Writer. 
 
 I may add your contributions under the nom de jilume of " Shamrock" have 
 received general and well-merited notice of a complimentary character. 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 WILLIAM H. LANGLEY, 
 Editor. 
 
 From Editor of "Bell's Life," A.D. 1871. 
 
 Bell's Life Office, 1871. 
 De.vb Sir, — Your article upon The Horse, which I return, is extremely well 
 written, and would make an admirable chapter for a book on the subject. 
 But in its present form, it is unsuited to my views as to what ought to be 
 provided for the reader of to-day. For a newspaper, as a rule, I consider 
 continuous chajjters objectionable, as being more suited to magazine literature. 
 If, however, you choose to resume the thread of your discourse upon " OuB 
 Ee-Mounts and General Horses," I shall be very pleased to give your con- . 
 tributions prominent insertion, as heretofore. 
 
 I am, my dear Sir, faithfully vours, 
 
 HENEY SWAITHWAITE, 
 Editor Bell's Life. 
 
 Vide " Waterford Mail."— July 6th, 1860. 
 
 Our Sporting Columns have, since the recent extension of matter in our 
 paper, contained original contributions and reports calculated to interest that 
 portion of our readers having a penchant for the turf and field sports generally. 
 And as we are determined to cater for our constituents, regardless of expense, 
 we have engaged a gentleman of established literary fame in equine and 
 general sporting writing (standard and periodical), to produce our sporting news 
 in that form of high excellence for which he is so pre-eminent. 
 
 In introducing " Shamrock " of Bell's Life in London as the gentleman 
 above alluded to, we give the best guarantee to our readers that our hopes 
 and encomiums are reasonable and just. 
 
 Hibernian Magazine Offices, 
 
 7, Wellington Quay, Dublin, 
 
 July Uth, 1860. 
 My Deab Sir, — I duly received the MS. you kindly sent me, and although 
 the terms you have named are higher than I have paid heretofore, I do agree 
 to them, as I know your articles are of the highest literary merit, and in my 
 opinion the sum you have named is not too much. Mediocre articles I always 
 thought too dear for me at any price. 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 JAMES DUFFY. 
 
 BHMROSE^ND SONS, PRINTKHS, l.nNDON AND DERBY. 
 
Webster ramily Library of Veterinary Medicine 
 Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at 
 Tufts University 
 200 Westboro Road 
 
 Mnr^hrroftnn,MA0153&