WARRANTING. 269 



try, every man is bound to be wide awake, or, 

 as the judge says, expected, not only to possess 

 ordinary skill, but to exhibit ordinary precau- 

 tion ; and experience tells me to trust a dealer 

 quite as soon as a gentleman.* 



Every novice in horseflesh is satisfied with his 

 new hobby for a week. A horse, however badly 

 bred, or faultily built, if only in good external 

 condition, will always catch his eye before a 

 thin one ; and bog-spavins, thorough-pins, capped 

 hocks, and windgalls, as well as the round shank- 

 bones and dents, are all less likely to be taken 

 notice of when the nag is in plump order ; many 

 having a bone-spavin, a contracted long foot, or 

 founder, have I seen pass through three or four 

 hands, each new possessor alike unconscious 

 of anything wrong : these treasures, whether 



* Addison's definition of the word gentleman is " a term of 

 complaisance, sometimes ironical." And gentlemen, and passers 

 for gentlemen, are as often mystically mixed up together in one 

 house, as thorough-breds and passers for thorough-breds are in 

 the same stable. 



At a dinner-party of eight, some few years ago, the con- 

 versation turning upon horse-flesh, I happened to let fall my 

 ideas of the little general honesty existing in any part of the 

 civilized world, i,n selling a horse. My vis-d-vis exclaimed, 

 "^ Impossible ! no gentleman would ever attempt to pass off an 

 unsound horse." Five more of the party chimed in to this most 



