Breeding of Hunters. 317 



his riding leg was a bent one, and did not admit of his 

 walking except with a crutch. Still, with all his 

 ancient pluck, he determined to make one more 

 effort to get a leg which would combine both 

 riding and walking powers, and up to London he 

 again journeyed as " a forlorn hope." His first essay 

 on horseback with the new leg was round the 

 ring at Tattersall's (Mr. Edmund Tattersall having 

 lent him a Steamer hunter for the purpose), on the 

 very day that " Big Ben" sent forth its first thunder- 

 peals, no doubt in honour of his being " once more 

 on the shopboard." An afternoon's ride round by 

 Earl's Court and Brompton, wound up by two strong 

 gallops down Rotten Row, where he seemed as much 

 out of season as a butterfly in a frost, and a lesson in 

 walking from a fellow sufferer, concluded his metro- 

 politan training. This " Patent American Leg" only 

 weighs 3jlbs. with all its fastenings ; and its inventor, 

 Mr. Palmer, unfortunately has to wear one. He lost 

 his leg when he was only a child of ten, during his 

 daily labour in a tanner's bark mill ; but he was 

 nearly twenty-two before he succeeded in solving the 

 problem of artificial locomotion. His own story of 

 his " first thoughts" on the subject, as told in The 

 Scalpel* is as follows : " It was winter, and exces- 

 sively cold. I was dissatisfied with my Anglesey leg, 

 and requested one of my brothers to bring me a 

 section of a young willow tree, then standing on the 

 farm. He did so, and being no practical mechanic, I 

 went to work on it with a jack-knife and 'a shave/ 

 such as coopers use. After having fashioned it into 

 something like the shape of a leg, I placed it over 

 night in the oven to dry out the sap. In some few 

 days I had so far completed it as to arrange the plan 

 I had conceived for the joints ; and at twenty-two 



* May, 1854. 



