A SPECIMEN OF THE POLKA. 91 



your attention is occupied, the chance is you 

 break your shin over a pail, and while dancing 

 with agony on one leg, you hop into the drop- 

 ping-scuttle, and out of that pop into the cold 

 stopping-box. 



One of the first things desirable in stable ma- 

 nagement is rule : by rule I mean a regular way 

 of doing things ; and this is a matter seldom 

 attended to sufficiently, unless the stable is under 

 the superintendence of a first-rate stud groom. I 

 do not merely allude to the important matters of 

 stable hours, dressing, feeding, watering, and so 

 forth, but to the minor details ; for though such 

 things may appear trivial, they will at times be 

 found important to attend to : I will merely men- 

 tion, by way of example, two. 



We will suppose a horse is going to be taken 

 out ; the groom takes off his head-collar, and, if 

 he is an ordinary servant, he lets it fall into the 

 manger : the horse is told to " come round ; " in 

 doing so it is quite likely the head-collar may 

 have lodged on the manger rail: if so, on the 

 horse turning, down it goes, and perhaps a hind 

 leg gets into it, or possibly a fore one ; the horse 

 gets hampered and frightened, if a timid one, and 

 then it ends as the case may turn out. Or sup- 

 pose it thrown down, and nothing happens at 

 that time, probably, from the same want of stable 

 rule, the groom never goes into the horse's stall 



