1 30 Among Men and Horses. 



During that year, I amused myself principally by going 

 to races. There being no wild horses in England to tame, 

 I did not attempt the farce of a public show, beyond giving, 

 at the invitation of Miss Undo, a practical lecture on horse 

 control and on riding, in aid of the funds of the Home of 

 Rest for Horses. As a novelty, I demonstrated, with the 

 assistance of my wife, whose fine riding on that occasion 

 was praised in The Field and illustrated in The Graphic, a 

 method for teaching ladies and men how to ride, especially 

 over fences, without having to hold on by the reins. 

 Although I was the first to put this method into practice, 

 I hardly like to say that I invented it ; because it gradually 

 evolved itself in my mind, during my horse-breaking work 

 with the long reins. At the performance in question, Miss 

 Reid and Miss Streeter also helped by some nice riding to 

 render the affair a success. 



By the kindness of Colonel * Sam ' Lyons, who was in 

 command of the Horse Artillery Riding Establishment at 

 Woolwich, I held a class at the riding-school there. Colonel 

 Lyons takes a great interest in the training of horses for 

 military purposes. He did everything in his power to help 

 me in my work and to render my visits to Woolwich pleasant. 

 My time was occupied there chiefly in teaching refractory 

 horses to 'passage,' rein back, jump, or to perform other 

 ordinary evolutions at which they had previously rebelled. 

 The only bit of taming I had was with a Commissariat mule, 

 which, for the preceding four or five months, so I was told, 

 would not allow anyone to handle him, and had consequently 

 passed his time in his stall, eating, drinking, and sleeping, 

 without doing any work. Having gone down to where he 

 was stabled, I led him out of his stall and took him up to 

 the riding-school, where within an hour, he became so quiet 

 that he was handled, saddled, and ridden about without 

 giving any trouble. My readers will naturally suppose that 

 the Commissariat officers, whose ignorance of breaking had 

 been the cause of the country having been deprived of the 



