FOR PEACE AND WAK. 33 



and well, they made up their minds, as they would be 

 supposed to do in a jury box, from pure evidence and fair 

 deductions, rather than from fixed notions upon a basis 

 not in accordance with existing facts, but more as the 

 representative of common report. If I can reasonably 

 show the nobility, gentry, and farmers of this country that 

 notwithstanding there were never at any period finer 

 specimens of the British horse to be found, still, more un- 

 soundness, "weediness," deformity, and scarcity than has 

 previously existed has marked our general horses of late 

 years, I should hope that the fact will be considered, in the 

 face of recent lessons as to the paramount eft'ect of efficient 

 cavalry operations in a campaign, to be sufficiently mo- 

 mentous for the "hereditary legislators " of this country to 

 take in hand and afford that attention and energy to, that 

 any imperial question of similar magnitude and importance 

 should challenge and obtain. 



If in the course of our subject the reader is struck with 

 my directing my attention largely to horse breeding and 

 horses in Ireland, it will be just not to attribute the fact to 

 the nationality of the writer; for my long residence in 

 England, and the accident of my singular profession, " call- 

 ing," or trade, have afforded me so thorough an insight into 

 every phase and bearing of the paddock, the post, and the 

 dealer's operations in England, that an intimate knowledge 

 of the important share that the " Sister Kingdom " bears 

 upon the supply, not only of our military re-mounts, but of 

 the higher class of hunters and other fashionable horses, 

 necessitates a careful review of the facts and circumstances 

 existing in that island with regard to the breeding of 

 horses. Many practical men, through different grades of 

 society there, are friends and acquaintances, who both breed 

 and purchase Irish colts ; and from information of a most 

 direct and reliable character, supported by export evidences 



