Turcoman Felt Clot///xg. 503 



At a mansion in Bedfordshire I saw wooden rolling shutters, like the steel shutters of shops, 

 used for coach-house doors. 



Every coach-house should be provided with a "pent" overhanging six or eight feet, under 

 wliich a carriage can be cleaned in wet weather. 



It is a great advantage to be able to apply a force of water, either to horses or carriages. 

 A strong douche is a wonderful remedy for strained sinews of the legs or muscles of the back, 

 as well as for washing a very muddy horse. A powerful jet directed on a dirty carriage, 

 instead of a brush, will make paint and varnish last many years beyond average, and enable 

 a man to get through his cleaning duty rapidly and effectually without the use of that mis- 

 chievous thing, a spoke-brush ; directed against the strained sinews of a horse's fore-legs, it will 

 often supersede the use of blisters or irons. 



For this reason a tower, to hold a water-cistern, to be filled by steam, horse, wind, or 

 hand power, is a useful as well as picturesque addition to a complete set of stabling. It may 

 also hold a clock. 



The single row stables at Tattersall's afford a good example of stalls well fitted up, 

 without any extravagant expense. Every horse there has a slate or glazed surface facing 

 him — a very important point ; but, except the mangers and glazed headstalls, all the other 

 fittings may be of wood, if in the situation where the stables are constructed wood is 

 cheaper than iron. Near great towns a contract with a manufacturer of stable-fittings will 

 generally be found the better plan ; a dry foundation, thoroughly drained, having been 

 first secured. 



The best set of stables I have seen near London are at Cricklewood, built by Newman and 

 Stansley. Nothing is wanting for the comfort of horses in health or sickness except a Turkish 

 bath, a most valuable remedy for influenza or exhaustion.* 



CLOTHING. 



Popular lecturers have compared the stomach of a warm-blooded animal to a furnace 

 which must be fed with food instead of fuel. On this theory, when cavalry horses are picketed 

 out in the open air, in cold weather, the best way of keeping up their condition is to give 

 them an additional feed of beans and oats. Horses at liberty can bear a very low degree 

 of cold, if they are not also exposed to wet. Exposed to cold they become rough as bears 

 and sluggish as donkeys, but not incapable of work. Clothing assists, and is indeed indis- 

 pensable, for obtaining a bright smooth coat, and for protecting horses from chill when they 

 return to their stables after violent exertions. 



The Turcoman robbers keep their thoroughbred horses they use on their plundering 

 expeditions in the open air, heavily clothed with camel-hair felt. 



In addition to the warm clothing required in the cold months of the year, summer clothing 

 of light kersey, with a quarter-cloth of brown-holland, neatly bound with coloured tape, is 

 often provided, adorned with the crest, or monogram, or initials of the owner- — the last being 

 a useful precaution in strange stables, where unmarked clothing and other portable articles 

 are as likely to be lost or exchanged as hats and umbrellas in a coffee-room. 



These day suits, complete, cost, without the supplemental blankets, from £1^ to £6 each. 

 Night suits, without hoods, of less expensive material, are also required to save the day clothing. 



* Mr. Joseph Constantine, 23, Oxford Street, Manchester, manufactures a "Convoluted .Stove," which is economical and 

 easily managed, for heating a Turkish bath on a small scale. 



