92 THE CONDITION OF HUNTERS 



lather like soap suds. The second day that lather 

 will be much thinner, and the third the perspiration 

 will run off him as clear as water. That perspiration 

 is the grand duct by which the impurities of nature 

 are carried off, requires no argument of mine to show ; 

 and so far from a horse being got into condition with- 

 out frequent recourse to it, even a cock cannot be 

 brought into the pit until he has gone through the 

 operation of sweating. All those gentlemen jockeys 

 who know what it is to waste to ride, have found the 

 full effect of this grand relief of nature in the light 

 and volatile feel which they experience after having 

 lost three or four pounds' weight in a walk in clothes, 

 and a good smoking between the blankets afterwards. 

 When they get up and are fresh dressed, they feel 

 as if they could fly ; and for my own part I have often 

 envied the feel of a race-horse walking back to his 

 stable after having had a sweat. 



Exclusively of the extreme debility and laxity of 

 fibre produced by it, many serious evils frequently 

 arise among hunters from a long respite from work 

 in the winter, unless proper preventive measures are 

 had recourse to. I am no friend to quacking, in 

 either horses or men, when they are well. I remember 

 the speech of the dying man : — " I was well, I wished 

 to be better, and here I am," said one who attempted 

 to mend a good constitution. Nevertheless, being 

 exactly of Mr Richard Lawrence's opinion, that 

 inflammatory attacks are to be apprehended with 

 horses in a state in which the constitution is preter- 

 naturally excited, preventive measures must be used 



