FOR PEACE AND WAR. 83 



to select from, and pay a smaller price for them than at present. In the 

 October following, if they were well fed in the meantime, you would find that 

 would be able to put them into the ranks sooner than a four year-old 

 , at that time."* 



The question of remounting cavalry will, in his opinion, 

 always be one of price. Amid such a mass of conflicting 

 evidence and opinions, who can say that the committee did not 

 do wisely in refraining from the proposal of any " special or 

 detailed scheme for providing army remounts ?" 



It is, however, satisfactory to know that while no one is 

 willing to dispute the falling off in the quantity of the material 

 at our disposal, that the quality remains the same is equally 

 indisputable.t All the military authorities we have quoted are 

 agreed on this point. It is merely a question of price, they say. 

 The horses are as good as ever, but they are dearer, and there 

 are not so many of them. The same remark, according to Mr. 

 Greene, M.P., a M. F. H., applies equally to hunters. Horses 

 Avhich two years ago he could mount the servants of his hunt 

 upon at an average of £40 apiece, are now hardly to be found 

 at all, and never under £60 or £80. It is the same witli 

 roadsters — a class much patronized, according to Mr. Phillips, 

 by foreigners — and with carriage horses ; the latter, indeed, says 

 Mr. East, are hardly to be got for any money : — 



"If you told me that you woTild give me £400 for a pair of carriage horses that 

 you dare put your wife behind- a pair of nice, good horses, worth ±"200 — and 

 gave me a fortnight to get them in, I would not guarantee to buy them. I do 

 not think there is a man in London that could do it, or that I could go to a 

 dealer's yard and get a pair of carriage horses, such as you would like to put 

 your wife behind, for ±'400. At this moment we have now got 300 lying by and 

 not earning a shilling, and we would not do that if we could supply London 

 by going into the market and getting what we want directly ; it is only that 

 we may have them by us when we want them in May and June." 



Even the number of racehorses chargeable to duty is, accord- 

 ing to the returns published up to the 31st of December, 1872, 

 less tban it has been in any previous year up to 1866. It was 

 then returned as 2,309, against 2,310 for last year, which shows 



* The concentration of practical wisdom and common sense in General 

 Peel's remarks here ought to be written in letters of gold, and they derive 

 great additional weight from the consideration of the immense stimulus the 

 prospect of an assured and early market would give to general horse-breeding. 



t It is not so ; according to the author's individual experience there are 

 more " weeds " and more unsoundness than thirty years ago. 



