t2 HORSEMANSHIP. 



generally mount himself to perfection. Despite the un- 

 equal distribution of capital in this little world of ours, the 

 " honest broker," the man with the special knowledge, who 

 makes his friends' or employers' interests his own, is a rarer 

 article than even the big available balance at the bankers'. 

 Still, this rara avis is not yet so extinct as the dodo. !Many 

 of us, far too many, alas ! though suffering keenly from that 

 aurl sacra fames which we are never able to satisfy or even 

 to take the edge off, are blessed with more dimes than dollars. 

 To those who cannot at any moment draw a big cheque at 

 sight, and who, like myself, want a very good horse for very 

 little money, I mainly address myself. 



When writing of hacks I do not use the term as indicative 

 of inferiority, nor do I refer to the wheel-like actioned 

 hackneys or roadsters of Norfolk, Yorkshire, and often of 

 somewhere else beyond the eastern shores of these islands 

 — a blend of the true old ^Marshland Shales stock with a 

 blend of the carty element, hardened by an occasional dash 

 of the thoroughbred to " revivify the flame and bid it burn 

 afresh." When freely fortified by blood, these hackneys, 

 those bred in the East Riding of Yorkshire especially, make 

 excellent hacks for heavy and elderly gentlemen, with whom 

 a good, quiet, weight-carrying cob, incapable of tripping, 

 and able to walk five miles an hour, fair " heel and toe," 

 without suspicion of run or amble is a pearl of price. But 

 it is the thoroughbred, or very nearly so, cantering and 

 galloping hack, not this conglomerate, that I have in my 

 mind's eye, and that I would put the reader on. 



To enjoy one's self thoroughly one must study one's ease. 

 Captain Percy Williams's " bone-setting," liver-shaking, stir- 

 rupless rides from Hounslow to Hyde Park Comer, to which 

 I call attention hereafter (p. 52), were excellent in their way, 

 and strongly to be recommended as a means to the end he 



