304 STABLES AS THEY SHOULD BE. 



provided. The horse was accustomed to stand before the door; or, 

 during those days when the doctor might walk abroad, the animal was 

 concealed within the yard. Intelligence had learned its lesson, and its 

 owner, being a timid rider, wanted the resolution necessary to force his 

 slave to receive and to obey a new itistruction. 



The foregoing anecdote should also enforce the wisdom of masters 

 making some further acquaintance with their living property than sim- 

 ply to know it for its uses. There are, however, a numerous class to 

 whom anecdotes are not illustrations, but nothing more than amusing 

 stories, easily invented and readily embellished. With these people, 

 nevertheless, seeing is believing. The writer, accordingly, with all 

 humility, invites his readers to peep down some of the many dealers' 

 yards, which they must pass during -a morning's walk through the 

 streets of London. 



One side of such a place is always thickly littered with straw, and 

 securely roofed in. Slowly riding up^ and down this covered way may 

 be beheld a mounted groom, who is leading another horse. Now, horse 

 dealers are not deficient in knowingness, and many of them have, during 

 former years, been in service themselves. Therefore, most of the class 

 are well acquainted with the secrets of domestics ; and they never trust 

 a steed to be exercised where some of the family may not overlook the 

 groom. "Oh, yes, they do I" the reader may exclaim; "for I have 

 often remarked 'breaks' being driven through the highways of the 

 metropolis." Perfectly true 1 Such articles are to be met with in the 

 middle or the after-part of the day, propelled by high-actioned and well- 

 matched horses. A little inspection will show the reins are in the pos- 

 session of no ordinary gi*oom. The master or the foreman guides the 

 quadrupeds which are then being shown to the public, and are not sim- 

 ply raw purchases receiving exercise. 



Dealers always exercise the horses at home; the windows of the 

 house invariably face the ride. Every London inhabitant may not be 

 able to command a covered way opposite his. drawing-room windows ; 

 but he may prevent his servant from playing tricks with his animals, by 

 ordering the man, when out exercising the creatures, to pass the family 

 residence at stated periods. By such an arrangement, some of those 

 strange accidents, which occasionally spoil the proprietor's breakfast, 

 and which are ever reported to him as having been done by the horse 

 in the night, might be prevented. While the owner, by claiming a right 

 of supervision, would also instruct his servant that the quadrupeds the 

 servant is engaged to attend upon are not absolutely given up to his 

 pleasure. 



The proprietor will, however, gain much by never permitting his 



