274 PRACTICABLE REFORMS. 



I know the theory set forth is, that unless boys learn to and 

 do ride at three stone or thereabouts, they will never be able 

 to do so at heavier weights. A more fallacious idea I think I 

 never heard uttered, or one more likely wholly to stop the 

 progress the theory professedly seeks to advance. Admit for 

 argument's sake that it is necessary for boys to commence 

 their tuition at an age so very early ; then, let them ride 

 at two stone, or any other weight, until practice has given 

 them something beyond the rudiments of a business they are 

 supposed to be thoroughly well acquainted with, if not perfect 

 in. It is not the learning at an early age that I complain of 

 in these boys, but the assumption of duties they are utterly 

 incapable of performing, and the coming forward to ride in 

 public, much as John Gilpin did, as regards the amusement 

 afforded to onlookers ; although unfortunately it is the reverse 

 of diversion to the luckless owner and backers of the horse. 



Everything I see connected with the light weights, con- 

 vinces me more and more of the absolute necessity of em- 

 ploying men instead of boys ; and whilst on this important 

 subject I cannot refrain from expressing my views copiously, 

 even at the risk of being thought tedious. Can any one 

 seriously believe that, of two boys weighing three stone 

 apiece and in other respects equal, the one after a year's 

 tuition as a jockey, shall, in after life, be better than the other 

 who has received four or five years extra tuition in his art 

 before appearing in public .'' Yet this is what some people 

 would have. By the same parity of reasoning they might 

 assert of two students equally gifted, that the one leaving 

 college after a year's tuition, will be equal in learning to the 

 other who has continued his course of study with unremitting 

 labour for four or five years longer. If this be the logic 

 brought forward in support of retaining the services of mere 



