FOR PEACE AND WAR. 99 



" Rumour is many-tongued, I wis : 



" And they do well who thus depict her ; 



" She is the sister unto babbling echo, 



" Their common parentage is empty sound, 



•' Then give no heed to flying rumour ! " 



The old play writer above quoted, is terse and graphic, 

 hut, notwithstanding the monition in his concluding lines, 

 this charitable world does too often "give ear" to slander 

 of public men, without evincing the common morality to 

 investigate the source and cause from which, what too often 

 would prove to be interested and mendacious, charges of 

 malversation spring. Grant a man in any walk of life the 

 accident of having by some signal individuality taken pre- 

 cedence of others, and " envy, hatred, malice, and all un- 

 charitableness," are too surely launched at him. 



Licenses for horse-agents would go far to remove the con- 

 sequence of such procedure ; for there Avould be a guarantee 

 to the public that a duly, authorized person had given 

 evidence of his eligibility, in a lyrbna facie way, at least, and 

 of his right to be regarded as a tit and trustworthy person. 

 In absence of anything of the kind, the horse market is so 

 over-run with objectionable characters, while at the same 

 time hard-working, honest, and clever judges are to be 

 tound, that the only safety for the public fortunately re- 

 niains in their own hands ; namel}^, trust no man, no matter 

 what appearances may be, without he can produce evidence 

 unimpeachable of his status, from recorded experiences of 

 liis clients in the past, and personal references in the 

 present. 



Whatever a man's struggles and trials in private life may 

 be are his own affairs ; but, in dealing with the public, it is 

 only fair to expect, where much confidence is a necessity of 

 his business, that, as a public man, he should be prepared 

 to show himself worthy of it. And he who can 'produce 

 such evidence in a clear, satisfactory manner, has much to 

 complain of in a state of the laAv wliere, with less study, 



