CHAPTER XII. 



POINTS — THEIR RELATIVE IMPORTANCE, AND WHERE TO LOOK FOR THETR 



DEVELOPMENT. 



A GENTLEMAN, when designing to purchase a liorse, should think 

 about the matter, and should determine, in his own mind, the kind of 

 animal he desires to obtain. The want of such definite knowledge is the 

 great deficiency with the majority of would-be buyers, and is the chief 

 cause of those annoyances which, ultimately, tempt too many well-dis- 

 posed persons into dishonest company. 



Having settled the minutest particulars to his own, satisfaction, the 

 gentleman should never seek to secure a cheap article. Knowing as 

 may be the general public, horse dealers are quite up to the mark of 

 popular cunning. Goodness in horse flesh is money's worth at any 

 market ; and every horse dealer in London is fully sensible to the merit 

 as well as to the value of all creatures in his yard. Therefore, the gen- 

 tleman will best court civility and honesty by being prepared to give a 

 fair price for that excellence which he is desirous of securing. 



The above maxim must be attended to, because a feeling person, when 

 he buys a horse, will be sensible he is taking a new member into his 

 family. No right-minded man can ever treat life as it were an inanimate 

 article ; — to be accepted at his will and to be discarded at his pleasure. 

 A lasting bond should, through ownership, be formed between mute 

 submission and honored authority ; for man, having the right of choice, 

 tacitly undertakes to shelter and to protect, as a return for willing serv- 

 ice rendered. Such is the implied or natural agreement : its obligations 

 ought to enforce that gentleness which should guard the inferior. 



To fit the reader for exercising a right of selection in a dealer's yard, 

 is the intention of the author. The gentleman who peruses this page 

 must, therefore, pardon an impertinence if, in the following descriptions, 

 he is treated as one entirely ignorant of horse flesh. When all must be 

 addressed, it is clearly impossible to make allowance for degrees of learn- 

 ing. The most ignorant must be made to understand, and the best in- 

 formed must generously overlook those discursions which, disregarding 

 personal attainments, appeal to the condition of the uninitiated. To be 



(Bid) 



