18 THE HOUSE 



He then hi^hojjs^ him, so as to make him appear of 

 the age for which the dealer wishes him to pass. 

 Should he chance to find a considerate owner, he 

 passes on again, until he is a second time regarded 

 as too old for further service. Again sold to a dealer, 

 ground young again, resold, and a new purchaser 

 pleased with the idea of his young horse. Cases of 

 repeated bishoping are now less common than for- 

 merly; but that they have occurred, there can be no 

 doubt ; and the old gray mare alluded to would 

 probably have undergone this operation more than 

 once, if she had ever been so unlucky as to have 

 fallen into a dealer's hands. The Dowager Lady 

 Lonsdale had tv\'o old hunters as caiTiao:© horses, the 

 one thnty-nme, the other iorty-one or forty-two years 

 of age. Some time since, two horses were workino^ 

 as carriage horses, at Dulwich, even older. The 

 late Mr. Astley vv^as presented by the Duke of Leeds 

 with a Barbary horse, tliat became very celebrated, 

 performed as a waiter, and lived to the great age of 

 forty-three. It was not long since recorded in Bell's 

 Life in Ltondon, that a horse had died upwards of fifty 

 years of age. Many other instances of the longevity 

 of this noble animal might be adduced ; but enough 

 have been quoted to prove, that if the horse be not 

 old from abuse, he will not be so from years, at eight. 



PACE. 



** It is the pace that kills," observed Lord Forester, 

 and all who are obliged to keep horses for their live- 

 lihood would do well to bear this maxim in mind; and 

 also to remember, that the pace which is slow for one 

 horse is fast for another, and vice versa. To hear some 

 of the knowing gentlemen assembled round a comfort- 

 able fire in the travellers' room of a country inn, 

 vaunting of the feats of their horses, can only excite , 



* Marking the t^cth with a hot irOD. 



