ME. KING'S LEARNED HORSE. 11 



by a resolute rider with whip and spur, and violent 

 loungings, or by starving, physic, and sleepless nights. 

 It was by these means combined that the well-known 

 horseman, Bartley the bootmaker, twenty years ago, 

 tamed a splendid thorough-bred horse, that had defied 

 all the efforts of all the rough-riders of the Household 

 Cavalry regiments. 



Bleeding a vicious horse has been recommended in 

 German books on equitation. In the family Robinson 

 Crusoe, paterfamilias -conquers the quagga by biting its 

 ear, and every farrier knows how to apply a twitch to a 

 horse s ear or nose to secure his quietness under an 

 operation. A Mr. King, some years since, exhibited 

 a learned horse, which he said he subdued by pinch- 

 ing a nerve of its mouth, called " the nerve of suscepti- 

 bility." 



The writer in the " Household Words " article, to which 

 I have already referred, tells how " a coachman in Kent, 

 who had been quite mastered by horses, called in the as- 

 sistance of a professed whisperer. After his ghostly course 

 the horses had the worst of it for two months, when 

 their ill-humour returned, and the coachman himself 

 immediately darkened his stable, and held what he 

 termed a little conversation with them, which kept them 

 placid till two more months had passed. He did not 

 seem altogether to approve of the system, and plainly 

 confessed that it was cruel." Putting shot hi the ear 

 is an old stupid and fatal trick of ignorant carters to 

 cure a gibbing horse it cures and kills him too. 



The latest instantaneous system which acquired a 

 certain degree of temporary popularity was that in- 

 troduced from the western prairies, by Mr. Ellis, of 

 Trinity College, Cambridge, which consisted in breath 

 ing into the nostril^ of a colt, or buffalo colt, while its 



