FOIl PEACE AND WAR. 107 



" get up " is sufficiently characteristic to assign tliem their 

 unenviable grade, without any display of their tastes and 

 habits through their conversation. If the knocker-knees 

 and tight-fitting trousers be not present to proclaim their 

 identity, and the gaudy scarf or ash-plant be laid aside, the 

 ])cculiar and jauntily-carried hat, or some other salient and 

 inseparable et cetera of the low horse dealer's external man 

 will surely be there to proclaim to the cognoscenti, as with 

 the voice of a stentor, the presence of one or more of those 

 industrious and unscrupulous individuals that has been 

 well but inelegantly described as "a cove with his weather- 

 eye open, invariably looking out for squalls ; " while to the 

 uninitiated and simple, they pass merely for what they 

 seem — men about horses. Amongst persons of this appear- 

 ance, however, will be found the hard-working, industrious, 

 " as-honest-as-I-can " kind of poor fellow ; but he is " as 

 snow in summer," as " angels' visits," a white black-bird, 

 or anything else very rare. These fellows are mostly an 

 organized gang, whose object is to prevent sales of valuable 

 and useful horses from being effected, until by their efforts 

 the horse's character is so injured that he must either fall 

 a prey much under value to some of the clique, or be re- 

 moved unsold after the heavy expenses of livery, advertise- 

 ment, travelling, &c., has been paid by the unfortunate 

 owner. This is technically called "crabbing." They do 

 nothing openly that can be effected secretly, and thus their 

 delinquencies, though well known to exist, are permitted to 

 remain unmolested. Besides, looking at the thing in a 

 business point of view, they buy and sell many horses, are 

 ready cash customers ; and it is therefore wiser in the esti- 

 mation of even some proprietors from whom the public have 

 a right to expect a higher code of morality, not to look out 

 at the "corners of their eyes" for objects that will not 

 offend their vision if they gaze before them in the ordinary 



