PACE. 231 



not even kowu their business. You may gain much by sucli 

 conduct, and will never gain anything by the reverse. 



If anyone wants to overtake you, liold back ratlier 

 than push on, and don't challenge them to a race. Few things 

 are more nudignfied than that. Choose your own pace, and let 

 no one else choose it for you, and let it be a pace that your horse 

 can do without distress. No one will think the better of you for 

 over-driving an animal. We were once on a four horse coach, 

 in Somersetshire, when a celebrated Chartist orator drove past 

 us with a fine trotting pony. He evidently thought that he or 

 his pony would make a favourable impression on the passengers. 

 The coachman gave him plenty of room and did not hurry his 

 team in the least to avoid being overtaken, but when he was 

 past, quietly said " That's just how he would drive us all if he 

 had the chance." 



548. — As to the pace at which you should drive, everything 

 depends upon circumstances. If you are driving an engine to a 

 fire, or a surgeon to a patient, where human life is at stake, 

 drive twenty miles an hour, or as fast as your horse can hold out to 

 complete his task. If your time is of great value and your 

 horses are in first-rate working condition, and not wanted to do 

 more than ten miles a day, on a good road with a light load, 

 you may drive ten or twelve miles an hour. If the same horses 

 have to do over a hundred miles a week, they should not be 

 driven more than seven miles an hour, unless their work comes 

 in vei'y short stages. IT you have a good, quiet, safe, family 

 horse, that you want to take care of, let him go six miles an 

 hour. He will always do far more on an emergency ; but when 

 you have got a good trusty horse don't stiffen and destroy him 

 in a year or two by always hurrying him. But don't overload 

 him with fat. Let him work modei-ately every day, and not be 

 overdone with corn. If you drive a grass fed horse, or one that 

 gets no shelter at night, or a brood mare, you may drive six 

 miles an hour in summer, but you must be very moderate indeed 

 in } our demands on them in the winter. Any horse in any cold 

 or temperate climate is capable of far more speed and endurance 

 in summer than in winter. A well-bred small horse may be driven 



