44 THE HORSE AND HIS RIDER 



6 When moderately reduced, through exercise 

 taken in a suit of proper sweaters say eight, or at 

 most ten, miles' brisk walk repeated for two or 

 three days, nothing can exceed the delicious sensation 

 of health and elasticity which comes over a man, 

 after being rubbed down with a coarse towel and 

 fresh clothed for the remainder of the day. The 

 effect is visible on the skin, which assumes a remark- 

 ably transparent hue, whilst after a repetition of such 

 regimen condition follows every sweat, till the jockey 

 becomes as sleek as the animal he is going to ride. 



' There was, I rnind, a favourite sweating-ground 

 with the Newmarket jocks, of about four miles out, 

 kept by a " Mother Onion," or some such name, 

 whither a whole brigade of antique-visaged little 

 gentlemen, carrying as much clothing as would 

 suffice for many much taller personages, might be 

 seen bathed in perspiration, either swinging their 

 arms to-and-fro to increase the muscular action, and 

 tramping after each other in single file on the foot- 

 path bordering the high-road, or else encountered 

 over the public-house fire, scraping the perspiration 

 from their heads and faces with a horn carried for 

 the purpose, precisely as a race-horse is scraped after 

 a race. After resting thus for half an hour or so, 

 and imbibing a tumbler of warm beverage to increase 

 the sweat, they return at a good pace to Newmarket, 

 perhaps to turn in for a short time and lie loaded 

 with blankets, in addition to their load of sweaters, 



