STABLE OPERATIONS. 79 



some places they have to feed and exercise the horses ; in 

 others, these duties are performed by a head-man and his 

 assistant. A strapper should be expert, able, and orderly at 

 his work. He usually looks after eight horses, four of which 

 are out every day. Some have more, but, with the harness, 

 eight is about as many as he can be expected to keep in good 

 order, especially during the winter months, and this number 

 he may manage in the best style which coaching requires. In 

 livery stables the horses need more grooming, and three sad- 

 dle horses may be sufficient work for one man. In some 

 places, however, he has four or five, and occasionally more. 



The strappers employed at out-stages should be picked 

 men, better paid, and better qualified than those who work at 

 headquarters, under the eye of the master or his foreman. 

 But the best are not to be much trusted. They should be vis- 

 ited often, at irregular intervals, without warning, and not at 

 one time of the day more than another. The horses should 

 be examined in reference to their condition for work, the state 

 of the skin, the heels, and the feet. The harness, the stable, 

 every part of it, and everything belonging to it. should pass 

 under review every now and then. 



THE HEAD-OSTLER OR FOREMAN. On large establish- 

 ments a head-man superintends the strappers, and the general 

 management of the horses. His work varies according to the 

 size of the stud, and to the time and attention which the owner 

 himself can bestow upon it. In some places the owner is in 

 constant attendance, and then the head-man is just the mas- 

 ter's assistant, having no fixed and regular task. But in gen- 

 eral it is his business to feed the horses, or at least to keep 

 the provender, give it out as wanted, and see that it be prop- 

 erly distributed. He has to keep the men at their duty, taking 

 care that everything be done in its own time, and examining 

 the work when it is done. He has to regulate the work of 

 the horses, dividing it in such a manner that each shall have 

 as much as he is fit for, and no more. In small establishments 

 the foreman sometimes has a stable of his own to look after, 

 which may contain the strange, the spare, the lame, or the 

 sick horses. When these exceed two or three, he must 

 have an assistant. When properly qualified, the foreman 

 ought to be, and usually is, empowered to hire and discharge 

 the strappers. Sometimes he pays their wages, but that 

 belongs more properly to the clerk. 



For a situation of this kind a man requires to have consid- 

 erable experience. To maintain order among the strappers. 



