36 



lately deceased," you may safely swear that he 

 belongs to a systematic chaunter, who will swindle 

 you both out of horse and money, and involve you 

 in all the trouble, cost, and vexation of an Old 

 Bailey prosecution to boot. 



I have tried all these fellows : I have ferreted them 

 out in all their holes and corners; I have run them to 

 earth scores of times ; I have detected them buying 

 a blemished or a stolen horse for ten pounds to-day, 

 and selling it clipped for fifty to-morrow ; starving a 

 poor famished wTetch without water for a week, that 

 it might drink itself into a dropsy, so as to " show a 

 good barrel" at the next sale-day ; or, as you have 

 already seen, subduing by protracted torment, into 

 deceitful quiet, a horse so vicious as to endanger 

 the life of his rider and all around him. Their 

 minor villanies are so numerous as to make de- 

 scription of them impossible ; and in these, aided 

 by their grooms, some self-called " gentlemen" do 

 not disdain to share. I have known men not 

 ashamed to boast of their ingenuity in tricks very 

 nearly allied to swindling — cauterizing the teeth 

 to conceal age, surfeiting a horse with unwholesome 

 food, staining a blemished knee, or clipping a horse 

 just condemned at the college, to prevent recogni- 

 tion. These and many such rascally devices, I have 

 heard confessed with vanity by young puppies 



