AND TIMES OF JOHN OSBORNE 431 



eir young stock they don't adopt the plan of shutting them up in 

 eir boxes ; they have open " hovels " in which they run about as they 

 [e. No doubt the modern system of training is against bleeding and 

 Beating. And for why? The constitution of horses nowadays is so 

 ic that they cannot stand the bleeding and sweating they used to do. 

 Id Tom Parr, who trained Rataplan, Saacebox, Fisherman, and other 

 >od horses in the old days, when he was hard up, used to let his horses 

 ed in the hedge-side as he walked them from one place to another. I 

 lew an old Doctor Brown who used to sit up with Tom Parr for weeks 

 igether and he told me all this. I went to Whitewall the year before 

 r arlock won the St. Leger for Mr. Anthony Nichol, who was a New- 

 istle man, and one of the most successful that erer owned a few horses, 

 lived with John Scott from that time until he died in 1871. Old John 

 id I never had a word. He taught me my business, and I went 

 irough the routine of stable life from the lowest to the highest. He 

 at me forward as head man at Whitewall, and I travelled with the 

 orses in that capacity. He was the best and kindest of masters 

 irge-hearted and charitable to a degree. It was his custom to kill a 

 it bullock for the poor of Malton every Christmas, and to send any 

 umber of Christmas presents to his friends for miles around. He was 

 man who used to read a great deal, Scott's Waverley Novels being his 

 ivourite reading. Lund told us a great deal more that afternoon, but 

 r e shall cut matters short by the following anecdote relating to old 

 'om Dawson : 



" It was just after Pretender had won the Derby that the late John 

 'eart, Jem Perren, and myself called at Tupgill on old Tom Dawson to 

 .ear him crack about the race. The same afternoon, after Pretender 

 ,ad won, Tom Dawson left London for Middleham. He had backed 

 'retender in the ring for a lot of ready money, amounting to some 

 iundreds of pounds. He put the notes into an old hat-box he had with 

 tim, with only a piece of string tied round it. In travelling North by 

 he Scotch train he placed the hat-box under the carriage seat. He 

 eft the train at Northallerton, forgetting the box with its pile of notes, 

 ,nd did not discover his loss until he got home. The box and its 

 :ontents were lost for three weeks, when they were returned to him 

 without a single note missing." 



