351 



saves all the cost of livery ad interim^ as well as 

 the agent's commission and ostler's fees on the 

 sale ; and while it saves all the personal trouble 

 and loss of time attendant on such transactions, it 

 secures a better chance of finding a wiUing pur- 

 chaser than an advertisement in the daily papers 

 twenty times inserted. 



The ethics of horse-dealing are very peculiar ; 

 there is only one other case in which gentlemen 

 appear, by a sort of conventional understanding, to 

 be excused for leaving their honesty behind them. 

 I have found to my cost, that no man thinks the 

 worse of a friend, for stealing an umbrella on a 

 rainy day, or palming off an unsound horse upon 

 a neighbour. This is now so perfectly understood, 

 that I must assume that my reader, whatever may 

 be his class, will cheat if he can ; but it is my duty 

 to inform him that Ije cannot go very far with im- 

 punity, and if he accepts the definition that I have 

 given of unsoundness, namely, any infirmity or 

 defect that incapacitates a horse for fair and rea- 

 sonable exertion in the labour for which he is 

 avowedly purchased, he will readily perceive that 

 his power of cheating is circumscribed by very 

 narrow limits. In fact the gentleman-dealer is in 

 a far worse situation to practise successful fraud, 

 than the professed chaunter. Men who can afford 



