1 84 RIDING 



well-bred, fast-going, weight- carrying hunters, horses which would 

 carry fourteen stone at a great pace and over difficult country with 

 perfect success. ... So also with regard to clever weight-carrying 

 hacks, which would canter at the rate of twelve or fourteen miles 

 an hour. At home they would command loo/., but he doubted 

 whether they would bring more than 5o/. in New South Wales, or 

 if any number could even be sold at that price. 



The price of horses in New Zealand and Australia does not 

 seem to have varied greatly in the past forty years. In 1850, 

 Captain Apperley, who was the head of an establishment in 

 New South Wales organised by the East India Company to 

 select and break ' Waters,' fixed 2o/. as a sort of maximum for 

 useful horses for Indian military service. At the same date 

 a contemporary writer speaks of having seen an enormous 

 number of horses sold by auction at from 2/. to io/., and heard 

 breeders say they were satisfied with 5/. a head all round, and 

 of having himself paid not more than 257. as the highest price 

 for his own excellent saddle and driving horses. 



The circumstances have only changed to this extent that 

 whereas at the time of Captain Apperley's mission the very 

 great majority of the population were settlers on the land, 

 farmers who lived without any show or pretence ; no wealthy 

 class of town residents, able or anxious to make any display in 

 their 'turn-out,' existed a class which was but just coming into 

 existence at the time Sir Hercules Robinson delivered his 

 address to the Agricultural Society in New South Wales. 

 Now, in the chief towns of Australia, there is an extensive 

 area of what in England we should term * villadom,' and nowhere 

 is it more remarkable than in Melbourne. Approaching that 

 city by rail the traveller is apt to fall into the error which I 

 have often noted in the case of foreigners arriving in London, 

 to pack up his books and papers on the first sight of the 

 suburbs, and then to sit on the edge of his seat, hat on head 

 and umbrella in hand, for a full half-hour, momentarily expect- 

 ing the train to pull up at the terminus. 



There exists, therefore, at the present day a market for a 



