230 INSTALMENTS. 



and admirable as her work in this way is, we must 

 improve upon it, or at all events try to do so. I have 

 heard old-fashioned men say that they would never 

 wish to see a horse do a day's work till he was five 

 years old ; others have said six. If by this they mean 

 a real day's work, comprising long-continued exertion 

 to the very utmost of the horse's powers, they are 

 right : but I have heard men go much further than 

 this, and say, that, putting economy out of the ques- 

 tion, they would let a colt run at liberty till five years 

 old. This, with deference to others' opinion, I con- 

 sider would be the very means to prevent his ever being 

 capable of the exertion we want in horses in these days. 

 Whether from such a mode of bringing up he might 

 live longer, I will not say : put to the kind of work 

 horses were a hundred years ago, possibly he might ; 

 but I should say he would not, in technical phrase, 

 "live a day in Leicestershire now" The muscles, 

 from want of early use, would have become fixed, and 

 that elasticity necessary to speed would be found 

 wanting. A horse wanting in elasticity will never 

 make a jumper : he may get over a stile or a low gate, 

 and he may be a very safe one at small or blind fences, 

 but he will never be able to give the bound that is to 

 carry us from field to field. A horse that will poke 

 half-way down a ditch, and then get over, is very well 

 at certain times, in certain countries, and for certain 

 people ; but I must confess I do not in a general way 

 admire this mode of jumping by instalments : it is a 

 very convenient way of clearing a debt, but a deuced 

 slow one of clearing a fence. It is better than 

 tumbling into a ditch full of brambles ; but give me 

 the India-rubber jumper that gets out of harm's way 

 by clearing the trap and landing me in the next field. 



