ALTEKATIONS NOT ALWAYS IMPKOVEMENTS. 27 



So it is with horses ; almost all of them will 

 improve on additional care ; but every one will 

 lose in condition, and consequently in value, by 

 a want of that care to which they have been 

 accustomed. If a man wants a horse to stand 

 heat and cold, wet and dry, three or four sweats 

 a-day, with permission to clean himself against 

 a post, nothing but a country butcher's hack 

 would do it. If, not intending to use a horse 

 thus unfairly, he wants a quick buggy horse that 

 can step over his seven miles into town in about 

 thirty minutes, go back in the evening, and do 

 this, we will say, five times a- week, and keep 

 in condition, he must get one that has been used 

 to it, or he must bring him to it by slow degrees. 



One of the best buggy horses I ever had I 

 bought of a Whitechapel carcass butcher, merely 

 from seeing him corning into town, certainly at 

 the rate of sixteen miles an hour, with a heavy 

 man and two calves in the cart ; but I gave 

 eighty-five guineas for him, and the good butcher 

 showed me two other nags, nearly as clever, and 

 in as fine condition as hunters. He prided him- 

 self much on this ; in fact they could not be 

 otherwise, for, partly from good judgment, and 

 partly from the nature of his business, his horses 

 had the three great promoters of condition good 

 care, plenty of corn, and fast work. 



Now if any man bought one of these horses, 



