A SOMEWHAT EXPENSIVE LESSON. 95 



gates to fall back against the wall, and fasten 

 across from it to the stall-post at night. They 

 are a small expense, and no inconvenience in any 

 properly proportioned stable ; and in one whose six 

 stalls contain, perhaps, a thousand guineas, they are 

 a safeguard that it is reprehensible to omit. For, 

 though a properly-made head-collar cannot be 

 slipped off, in case of fright or a horse getting 

 cast, some part of it may be broken, or if the 

 safety-shank collar rings I have mentioned are 

 used, the horse will disengage himself and get 

 loose ; and a broken leg from the other horses in 

 such a case is too serious a matter to be risked. 



As some proof of the obstinacy (for I can scarcely 

 call it by a milder term to be an appropriate one) 

 of some persons as to horses, and, further, that the 

 cautions I recommend are not quite futile, a friend 

 of mine, a good judge of horse matters too, had 

 two stallions that stood in his hunting stable, with 

 no other safeguard than the other horses, namely 

 proper head-collars on them. I told him that 

 some night he would have an accident. He laughed 

 at my croaking, as he termed it. But singular 

 enough, in a night or two, one of them did get 

 loose, and worried a very valuable horse, so as to 

 lay him up for the season, and disfigured him for 

 life. Any one would have thought this lesson 

 would have sufficed, but it did not ; for a couple 

 of seasons after, he kept two other entire horses, 



