ON PURCHASE AND SALE. I55 



I allude principally to the well-known ftable 

 difcipline among dealers, of figging and fir- 

 ing. The firft is,, to thruft a corn (as it is 

 phrafed) of ginger into the fundament of a 

 horfe, or burden of a mare, the inftant or being 

 led out to fiiew, for the purpofe of irritation, 

 and of elevating the tail, which is thereby 

 ufually cocked up in a monftrous and ludi- 

 crous manner. Firing is the difcipline of the 

 whip, which is ufed to aroufe every fpark of 

 metde in the horfe. The latter is an everlaft- 

 ing fource of cruelty, perpetrated by a race of 

 brutal and infenfible mifcreants, who would be 

 as little fcrupulous to derive gain from the 

 torture of their own fpecies. Horfes, whilft 

 in fuch hands, live in a conftant ftate of ap- 

 prehenfion and mifery. Almoft every hour 

 in the day, the tormentor goes into the ftable, 

 like a Weft-Indian Negro-driver, whip in hand, 

 and inflitts the cruelty of the lafti upon each 

 horfe, in order to make him lively and apt to 

 fly, even at the found of a man's foot; and 

 this correction from habit, from a deiire of 

 reaping all its imaginary benefit, and ^rom fup- 

 pofed caufes of offence, is often performed^ with 

 the utmoft force. But the barbarity' is never 

 fo monftrous, or rather helHfti, as when infiici- 

 e(J upon the debilitated and crippled obje6ls of 

 excefiive labour. Too much of this is prac- 

 tifed at the fales of worn-out poft-hacks and 



machiners ; 



