131 

 physician would treat so many city aldermen ; and 

 give dinner or digestive pills almost as regularly. 

 A fatted beast is always diseased, but an animal 

 liberally fed is thereby rendered the more healthy. 

 In fact, the dread of those results which ensue from 

 comfort is, with regard to the horse, quite as un- 

 founded as the fear, that mankind once had, of the 

 " miseries of the rich," and the envy, poets taught 

 them to indulge, towards the starvation of the poor. 

 Such idle fancies may be dismissed with profit to 

 the person who discards them ; but at the same time 

 there are some practices the reader needs to be 

 cautioned against. To give the face of the horse 

 a youthful appearance, some of the class of dealers 

 who frequent public markets, low auctions, and 

 country fairs, puncture the skin at that part where 

 the falling or depression is seen above the eyes in 

 old animals. Having inserted into the orifice a 

 small quill, they then blow into the part, thereby 

 inflating the subjacent tissue, and concealing the 

 cavity. This notable artifice, which is called 

 ^^ puffing the glymj" ought to impose upon no one. 

 Should the trick be suspected, let the hand be care- 

 lessly raised to pat the neck and cheek of the 



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