FOR PEACE AND WAR. 97 



weakness but a passion in these Islands to be "liorsey," 

 or considered so. Look how many there are who really 

 don't know which side to mount a horse from, that 

 dress as if they were a cross between a swell and a pad- 

 groom. Some such caricature as gave rise to the definition 

 I have read somewhere, " he was the horsiest 7nan on foot ; 

 and the footiest man on a horse I have ever seen." Such 

 persons, however, are comparatively harmless to the public, 

 but, where we find people with the ignorance of the know- 

 nothing announce themselves as competent assistants to the 

 public in search of horses, it is quite time to raise the finger 

 of warning, and suggest that before submitting to the potent 

 influences of effrontery and emblazonment it, would be well 

 to investigate carefully the respective pretensions and 

 credentials of every man holding himself forth as a " Horse 

 Commissioner." Quack doctors and charlatans come under 

 the ban of the law, but, unhappily for the public, there is 

 no legal restriction to penalize the bold but ignorant 

 assumers of a profession, calling, or trade, that great quick- 

 ness of perception, early association, and the devotion of a 

 life-time can alone make the proficient in. Surely, if agents 

 offering themselves in the horse market are competent for 

 the present, they must have been in the past, and if so, they 

 must be able, somehow, to satisfactorily prove it. Why 

 then not seek for such proof ? 



But, I must apologize ; the matter is to me a personal 

 and a sore one, and has led me from the track I was 

 journeying in. 



The subject of horse-warranty is one of vital importance 

 in the present consideration of " horse supply," and all that 

 can induce to its satisfactory promotion. Protect the pro- 

 ducer — therefore the vendor — and let the customer guard 

 himself by trial with veterinary and public agency supervi- 

 sion. The tender mercies of vendors are, no doubt, not 



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