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chase such a horse as a gentleman need not blush 

 to own ; but it may safely be assumed that all the 

 horses advertised for sale at twenty and thirty 

 pounds, are aged, unsound, vicious, or in some way 

 or other unsafe purchases for any man that has a 

 reasonable respect for his own limbs. I have been 

 reproached for this estimate of the value of a good 

 hack. It is considered by the soi-disant knowing 

 ones as savouring too much of the cockney style 

 thus to affix a given value to that which is usually 

 supposed to be arbitrary or accidental. To this I 

 reply, that I am speaking of horses as they are 

 found in the London market ; and of prices as they 

 are commonly asked by London dealers : the ac- 

 cidental hits of sporting life are too numerous and 

 too mystified also for my calculation : they are 

 beyond the doctrine of chances ; but in reference 

 to a market price, I see no reason to retract a word 

 of what I have written ; and though as little of a 

 " Londoner" as a man born in another hemisphere 

 some four thousand miles from the sound of Bow- 

 bells can pretend to be, I write for the benefit of 

 " Londoners," not of Meltonians. I have found 

 among these despised "Londoners," during twenty 

 years' acquaintance with them, not only some of 

 the most intelligent and most amiable men of their 

 day, but as polished minds as St. James's can pro- 





