Tricks of the Trade. 303 



head out of the carriage window and says, " John, 

 what is the matter with the horses, they make an 

 awful noise?" John says, ^^I don't know, Sir, but 

 I think they must be broken-winded." The 

 horses are then taken home, and Swell goes to 

 the lodgings of Coper No. 1, and finds that he left 

 them the same day he bought the horses. The 

 stables are next tried, to find the birds flown, and 

 Swell then learns for the first time that he does 

 not know all. In a day or two after a carter- 

 looking man, with a smock frock on, has heard 

 that Swell has a pair of broken-winded horses for 

 sale, and as he has a bit of land, he thinks he 

 can work them on it, and offers £10 for the pair, 

 which Swell, being disgusted with his purchase, 

 takes, and the horses are then taken, not to work 

 on the land, but next time to be advertised as 

 brougham horses, or are put into TattersalPs or 

 St. Martinis Lane, to be sold as the property of 

 a gentleman. Coper No. 2 looking after them, 

 and having in his pockets some weighted balls, 

 which he takes care to give the animals before 

 the show commences. Coper No. 1 runs up the 

 horses until he thinks he has attained enough 

 for them, when they are knocked down to some 

 novice, who thinks that because that horsey- 

 looking gentleman bid so much for them, he has 

 not given too much by giving a fiver more. 



There is another class of land sharks in the 

 horse line, and they are as dangerous as the 

 common coper. These are the guinea hunters, 

 or gentlemen who buy horses on commission. 



