118 NIMROD'S NORTHERN TOUR. 



recommended for treating hunters in the summer is very generally 

 followed*. Neither is the system of clipping — which I have always 

 condemned, and which I shall never cease to condemn, as a mere cheat 

 to the eye, as a violent outragef on nature, and a substitute for real con- 

 dition, — adopted, except in cases of extreme necessity, of which there 

 were only two in a stud of this magnitude. These were in horses very 

 irritable when dressed, which, in my opinion, is the best reason for having 

 recourse to the operation of clipping, inasmuch as after a good run in a 

 dirty country, such horses may be said to be doing nearly a second day's 

 work after they return to their stalls. In the account I have written — 

 the first part of which has been published in the New Sporting Magazine — 

 of all the hunters I have myself possessed, will be found the mention of 

 one which could not be dressed at all on the evening of the day he had 

 been ridden with hounds, and consequently had clipping then been in 

 fashion, he would without doubt have been benefitted by it. 



The first stable I walked through was that which contained the 

 servants' horses, sixteen in number, amongst which I espied "the old 

 Black Horse," as he is called, that carried Williamson so splendidly 

 throughout the clebrated fifty-five minutes from East Gordon-gorse, of 

 which I have already given an account. He is a low, narrow, but long, 

 deep, and wiry-looking animal, showing a deal of blood, although of rather 

 mean appearance; and, as I was told, was purchased, like many of 

 Williamson's horses, for a very inconsiderable sum. He appeared, 



*A very sporting yeoman in the neighbourhood, by the name of Brown, had, a 

 short time before my visit to St. Boswell's, made a present to Hugh Burn, the first 

 whipper-in, of the book called " Nimrod on the Condition of Hunters." 



tWe do not go the length of our friend Nimrod in condemnation of clipping. 

 We do not see that it is any greater outrage on nature than the general system of equine 

 domestication. However, we readily give insertion to his sentiments, with this salvo 

 for ourselves. — Editor N. S. M. 



