What a Groom cax Do. 



519 



One of the best all-round grooms I ever saw, turned out, with the assistance of a rough 

 country lad and a little bo}', six hunters in first-rate condition every winter, having broken and 

 harnessed one or two of them in the course of the summer ; and when the hunting season was 

 over, took the management of a kitchen garden and farm of ten acres, having his master, an 

 ex-M. F. H., as a docile assistant under his orders. 



Where mere utility is required, one good man, with the assistance of an agricultural 

 labourer, will do wonders in turning out two or three horses for country use. This may be 

 seen in the stables of small country dealers and of hunting farmers ; but then there is the 



ASSYRIAN CHARIOT (FROM A BAS-RELIEF). 



inestimable advantage of the eye of a master who knows how stable work should be done, 

 how horses should be fed, and what quantity they can reasonably eat. 



In circuses the horses travel twenty miles or more a day, only resting on Sundays. One 

 man has to look after five of these horses, many of which are worth from one hundred to 

 three hundred pounds each. Of course he does not groom them, he simply washes them in 

 cold water, and they are seldom sick except with some epidemic. In the great cab stables 

 of London one man has to dre.ss six horses every morning, six every afternoon, and clean their 

 harness ; for this he is paid about forty shillings a week. 



But no man can properly attend to more than two hunters, and if they are both hunted 

 on thte same day he must have assistance. 



A coachman in a family with no pretensions to fashion, and not keeping late hours, may 

 manage to turn out a carriage and pair of horses in decent condition most days of the week, 



