94 England's horses, 



A few words to the public may be introduced here without 

 an unpardonable digression, as being pertinent to the 

 subject under notice, upon the usages of horse dealing. 



That King Solomon dealt in horses, the Great Book tells 

 us, thus establishing horse dealing as of respectable antece- 

 dents and very ancient date. Also, in the 27th chapter of 

 Ezekiel, reference is made to dealing in horses and mules 

 in the fairs of Tarsus. We have not any record as to 

 Avhether the cheating, deception, and over-reaching, which, 

 unfortunately, has from time immemorial, justly or unjust- 

 ly, been associated with the trade in the public mind, 

 ])revailed in those remote days. But English History 

 acquaints us that so great an incubus did " coping " 

 rascality become, an Act of the Legislature was passed in 

 the reign of Richard the Second, instituting a statute by 

 which the prices of horses were regulated. Of course, such 

 a law fell into odium and disuse, as the great individual 

 difference in horses' value became more generally known. 

 The legislature has long, doubtless, bad a thorough know- 

 ledge of the necessity for imposing some restrictive penalty 

 upon this branch of the national traffic ; but from the many 

 difficulties in the way, and the acrimonious jealousy, that 

 anything like legislative interference in private affairs 

 arouses in this country, it has never yet arrived at anything 

 of a protective character more cosmopolitan and enlightened 

 than our licensing horse traders, and our present farcical 

 law of horse warranty. 



I think a quotation from the pen of a gentleman — the 

 Addison of his school of writing — may here be introduced 

 with some effect, as being more fi-ee from the charge of 

 interested motive than anybody so immediately connected 

 with horse trade as myself, could hope to apply to his 

 personal writing. That able penman and popular favourite, 

 NiMROD writes : " The laws relating to selling horses, on 



