STABLE SERVANTS 93 



ing season, when exercise is short, a helper who has 

 nothing else to do, ought to be able to dress three 

 horses, but to do this properly, he must be a really 

 good workman. Try, if possible, to get men who 

 have been brought up from boyhood in the stable, 

 children of respectable stable servants preferred. 

 I have found that my best men belonged to this 

 class. The work seems to come easier to them, and 

 they notice things about their horses as if by 

 instinct, which never seems to strike a man who 

 took to stable work late in life. A great many 

 stable ills are caused through the man in charge 

 not noticing the beginning of them. In the hunting 

 stable, if anj^where, ' a stitch in time saves nine.' 



Whatever else you leave to your head groom, 

 I should advise your ordering your forage yourself. 

 I am not going into that subject of bribery by 

 tradesmen, which is too prevalent to be stopped 

 until education introduces a higher standard of 

 morality. Among stablemen I firmly believe that 

 this will come one of these days. At the beginning 

 of the century the financial morals of our own 

 class were much lower than they are now, and our 

 grandfathers winked at iniquities from which we 

 should shrink with horror. The morals of most 

 individuals are those of the class to which they 

 belong, and, as a class, servants do not yet realise 

 that in taking ' tips ' from tradesmen they are being 



