STABLE PRECAUTIONS. 327 



ride trials with the utmost confidence, as I knew 

 by the letters which he persisted in dictating, 

 some of which were not very correct as to the 

 merits of the animals upon which he gave an 

 opinion. For instance, he made great mistakes as 

 to the weights carried by horses in many of the 

 trials. 



I soon found that some change of tactics in 

 weighing the lads was essential. I also had to 

 employ various descriptions of saddles and saddle- 

 cloths to attain my object. The traitor considered 

 himself so very clever that in one of his letters he 

 stated, " My master may think he is deep enough 

 to deceive us in the weights, but he cannot 

 deceive me with his loaded saddle-cloths. Such 

 and such a horse must have had a lot of weight to 

 carry, and then won easily." It so happened that 

 he was not within 2 J stones of the right estimate, 

 as the lead in the saddle-cloths had been replaced 

 by pieces of pine-wood of the same shape. All 

 this was very gratifying to Lord George, as it 

 afforded him an opportunity of making a distinc- 

 tion between a faithful servant and a scoundrel. 

 It is needless to add that the traitor, after he had 

 been turned into a dupe and had served his pur- 

 pose, was summarily dismissed, while those who 

 had bribed him suffered great losses. The faithful 

 servant was liberally rewarded, and eventually had 

 a good situation obtained for him. 



Lord George was so frequently at Goodwood, 



