188 STABLING. 



hunters or hacks, enjoying the advantage of 

 regular food, dressing, air, and exercise, will 

 constitute all the apology I think it necessary 

 to introduce for any degree of freedom I may 

 be inclined to offer, in drawing a comparisou 

 very little observable by metropolitan he- 

 roes ON horseback, but universally known 

 to the discriminating eye of every expe- 

 rienced sport^iTian in the kingdom. 



Such inferiority arises from an accumula- 

 tion of causes, very little considered or in- 

 quired into by the owners, or riders, who 

 philosophically define and experimentally de- 

 monstrate the horse to be an animal of ge- 

 neral utility, and appropriate him to all their 

 different purposes accordingly ; with as little 

 attention to his colour, perfections, or defects, 

 as a tradesman at Manchester, who having, 

 some few years since, occasion to a^ttend the 

 assizes at Lancaster, hired a grey gelding for 

 the purpose, but unluckily returned with a 

 bay mare, and obstinately persisted jn oppo- 

 sition to every witness and expostulation, t1iat 

 he had brought back the very horse and 

 equipments with which he had started, in 

 ob<^dience to the le^al injunction he had re« 



