MOUTHS AND MANNERS 



carry you across country, or anywhere, and gates 

 and bar- ways may be present in quantities. Your 

 hack need not know how to jump them, but he 

 must know how to be handy in the other ways. 



We have gone quite daft upon the subject of 

 appointments, which matter not at all to any one 

 but the faddist and the " poseur," but never stop 

 to consider that an outfit comprising every detail 

 that caprice may require or ingenuity construct, 

 may be quickly reduced to fragments, and rele- 

 gated to a state of " innocuous desuetude," by the 

 misdirected energies of an animal which is lacking 

 in these two essentials. 



Primarily, and of more importance than the 

 layman will allow, it is necessary that your horse's 

 " clothes must fit," his harness be just right at alJ 

 points, his saddle properly fitted to his back, and 

 correctly placed, his bit or bits rightly arranged 

 in his mouth. Let the master be ever so partic- 

 ular as to the set of his own garments, it is a mar- 

 vellous fact that he will, month after month, ride 

 his hack uncomfortably and improperly capari- 

 soned as to saddle and bridle, the former wrongly 

 placed, unevenly padded, too narrow and too 

 short in seat to properly distribute weight when 

 the rider is a heavy man, and the head-piece too 



103 



