118 AMERICAN MULES AND HORSES. 



attain. As to driving, somehow or other they guide 

 their horses (though, to an English eye, in a spread-eagle- 

 like and most unseemly way) safely enough to where 

 they wish to go, and on many occasions dispense with 

 winkers. 



Their horses and mules are generally very docile ; and 

 on one occasion, in St Louis, and in the possession of my 

 friend Dr Pope, there was a favourite horse of his that 

 could be left in the street with his gig or cab without any 

 attendant, and that would, when he saw his master com 

 ing, turn himself off at an angle to open out the step for 

 his more easy ascent into the carriage. He would also 

 take his carriage from the house-door to his stable on be 

 ing told to do so. I observed in the streets, in all the 

 towns through which my journey lay, that the horses of 

 America were most sensible and obedient to the voice of 

 their drivers, though, with the exception of some gentle 

 men who spoke kindly, the words addressed to them by 

 the lower orders were of the coarsest and most brutal de 

 scription. The sort of horse thus brought within my ob 

 servation, for both riding and driving, could scarce be 

 surpassed in England. There is, though, one fact on 

 which I must congratulate the Boh-hoys in New York ; 

 it is this, that if the same number of all sorts of vehicles 

 were jammed up together, as I have seen them, in the 

 most dray -frequented part of the Broadway, in any por 

 tion of the city of London, there would be more swearing 

 and slang among the English drivers of that description 

 than in those of the United States. 



It is the fashion in America to boast that the presence 

 of woman ever meets with respect ; of course her pre 

 sence always commands it among gentlemen of any coun 

 try in the world, but in New York a policeman is obliged 



